


Jeeves and the Ribald Romance

by Wotwotleigh



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Milady's Boudoir, Purple Prose (In-Universe), Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2018-12-12 01:51:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 23,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11727018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wotwotleigh/pseuds/Wotwotleigh
Summary: Aunt Dahlia recruits Bertie and Jeeves to help enact a plan to save her floundering weekly women's magazine,Milady's Boudoir. Despite his reservations, Bertie agrees to help. But where will he find a writer willing and able to take on the project Aunt Dahlia has in mind?





	1. Chapter 1

It all began on a hot, sticky August morning. Jeeves had just floated in with the tea tray, and on it I perceived a small yellow envelope, tucked in beside the steaming cup of oolong. 

“Is that a telegram, Jeeves?” I asked. And I asked it with no little trepidation, for hard experience has taught me that telegrams usually mean trouble. This is especially true of telegrams that are delivered on a tea tray at an indecent hour in the ack emma, before a chap has even had the chance to get around the outside of his daily eggs and b. 

“Yes, sir,” replied Jeeves. “From Mrs. Travers.” 

I brightened at this. This Mrs. Travers – otherwise known to my faithful readers as my Aunt Dahlia – is my good and deserving aunt. She is not to be confused with my Aunt Agatha, who bays at the full moon and bathes each night in the blood of her victims. It had been some time since I had had a tête-à-tête with this esteemed relative, and I was pleased to receive a communiqué from her now. 

“Ah!” I said, reaching for the restoring cuppa. “Read it to me, would you, Jeeves? I’m in no condition to be squinting at telegrams at this hour.” 

“Very good, sir.” He opened the envelope with a competent flick of his finger, extracted the contents, and read: “‘ _Boudoir_ in dire straits. At wits’ end. Come down Brinkley Court at once prepared lend aid and succour. Bring Jeeves. Love. Travers.’” 

I sucked a bit of air in through the teeth and took a sip of disquieted tea. “Gosh, Jeeves!” 

“Indeed, sir.” 

“The old rag’s in trouble again, what? And just when I thought it was finally starting to turn a tidy profit!” 

“The world of women’s periodical publications would seem to be fraught with uncertainty, sir.” 

“You’ve said a mouthful, Jeeves. These literary females must be a frightfully fickle bunch. What do you suppose Aunt Dahlia wants us to do about it?” 

“I could scarcely venture to hazard a guess, sir.” 

“Well,” I said decisively, “I see no reason to tarry. Pack our bags, Jeeves. Let us make the journey to Brinkley Court in all good haste.” 

“Very good, sir.” 

I confess there were several motivating factors behind my interest in this case. In addition to wishing to help a beloved aunt out of the goodness of a nephew’s heart, I also have a special fondness for _Milady’s Boudoir_. As I may have mentioned once or twice in some previous installment of my memoirs, I once wrote a piece for this modest weekly publication on the subject of “What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing.” The thought of seeing the dear old mag vanish into the drink for good gave me the pip. 

What’s more, I was positively salivating at the chance to sit down at the feed trough at Brinkley Court and sink the pearly whites into the supreme chef Anatole’s latest culinary opus. In short, a visit to the Travers G.H.Q. at this juncture struck me as both a worthy cause and just the stuff to give the troops. 

Had I known what horrors awaited me there, I would have booked the soonest ocean liner to Alaska and asked Jeeves to post my obituary in the _Times_. But that, of course, is not what happened. 

And for once, I had only Jeeves to blame. 

\--- 

When we fetched up at the bucolic grounds of Brinkley Court late that afternoon, Aunt Dahlia was pottering about in the front garden, cursing at weeds and giving the local viburnum beetles what for. She leapt up like a rocketing pheasant when the car hove into view, and bounded over to greet us. 

It was clear from her manner that she was all of a doo-dah. This aunt is always a trifle on the reddish side, the result of a youth spent riding over the windy moors and terrorizing the vulpine populace with the Quorn and Pytchley. At the present moment, her complexion was positively brick-like. One also noted a wild glimmer in the eyes. All in all, she had the general air of an aunt who is about to start something. 

“What took you so long, you appalling young blot on the landscape?” she demanded as I bunged myself onto the drive. “I thought this ridiculous car of yours was supposed to be fast.” 

“We flew as quickly as we could to your side, dearest a.,” I said, planting a kiss on the vermillion cheek. 

“Oh, well,” she said, waving a trowel at me in a dismissive manner, “you’re here now, anyway, so I might as well come straight to the point. Boys, I have had a brain wave. I know exactly what _Milady’s Boudoir_ needs!” 

“I say! But that’s splendid, Aunt Dahlia.” I turned to Jeeves, who had extricated himself from the two-seater at some point during the above banter and materialized silently at my elbow. “Did you hear that, Jeeves?” 

“Yes, sir. That is indeed heartening news, madam.” 

“You bet it is,” said Aunt Dahlia. “I’d go so far as to say it’s dynamite. The trouble with the _Boudoir_ is that it offers more or less all the same nonsense that you can find in any other women’s weekly rag. Fashion, movie stars, domestic drivel. The occasional light mystery or romance story. But tell me,” she went on, poking me in the sternum with the tip of her trowel, “what’s the one thing it’s missing? The one thing that the modern, liberated young woman longs for in her reading, but the average ladies’ pulp stubbornly refuses to cough up?” 

The spectre of Florence Craye rose menacingly before my mind’s eye. “The philosophy of Nietszche?” I ventured. 

“No, you ass! Sex!” 

I drew back, appalled. “Steady on, Aunt Dahlia!” I cried. 

“Don’t you ‘steady on’ at me, young Bertie. Do you really think you men are the only degenerates buying up copies of _Spicy Detective_ by the score? Ha! Tell me, who do you suppose has been keeping Mae West in business all this time? If you think it’s the boys, you’re dead wrong. Women want sex appeal, and I’m going to give it to them.” 

“And how exactly are you planning to do that?” I asked, although I wasn’t any too sure I would care for the answer. 

“Just the question I was hoping you’d ask, my little chickadee. Every week, _Milady’s Boudoir_ will feature a lush and steamy new story, designed to titillate the feminine psyche and arouse the animal passions. These stories will be sloshing over with sweat-soaked, muscle-bound explorers gadding about in bulging trousers with their top shirt buttons undone, making frantic love to fiery young flappers with flashing eyes and heaving bosoms.” She gestured expansively as she spoke, bidding me to visualize the whole sordid affair as if it were playing out before me on a moving picture screen. I shuddered. 

“But look here, Aunt Dahlia,” I said. “Do you really think this is such a hot idea? Won’t it cause a bally scandal? Good lord, just think of what Aunt Agatha will say! She’ll be apoplectic!” 

“Good,” said Aunt Dahlia, giving her trowel a decisive twiddle, like a gunslinger preparing to re-holster his pistol. “There’s no publicity like a good scandal. I hope Agatha jolly well _is_ apoplectic. I hope she brings it up at the next meeting of the Women’s League of Moral Advancement. They’ll be snapping up copies of the newest issue like griddlecakes just to see what the fuss is all about.” 

I was silent for a moment. I mean to say, the last thing I wanted to do was wound an aunt’s finer feelings, but it seemed to me that this was a situation that would soon get out of hand if not nipped efficiently in the bud. The present moment struck me as one in which manly frankness was called for. I squared the shoulders and looked her directly in the eyeball. 

“Now look here, Aunt Dahlia,” I said sternly, “you’re a grown woman, and it’s your life, of course. But I can’t see my way to giving this debauched venture of yours a nephew’s blessing, if that’s what you’re hoping for. _Milady’s Boudoir_ has always had a sterling reputation.” 

She snorted like a disgruntled rhinoceros. “Sterling reputation, my eye! The closest _Milady’s Boudoir_ has ever gotten to anything sterling is when I walk past Tom’s silver room with the proofs once a week. Anyway, I don’t want your beastly blessing. I want your help.” 

I uttered a laugh, one of those hard and derisive ones. Aunt Dahlia kindly asked me if I needed a cough drop, but I waved her off. “What sort of help could I possibly be?” I asked. 

“Well, you might find this difficult to believe, but it’s devilishly hard to find writers who are willing to dish up saucy literature for the fair sex, especially here in old Blighty. I understand that America is crawling with them, but the trouble is, I don’t know any. You do, though.” 

“Me!” 

“Yes, you. You’re always popping off across the Atlantic to gallivant around with those starving writers and artists in New York. I’d bet Tom’s Balthasar Haydt sweetmeat dish that one of them would do it for a song.” 

“If you think,” I began with quiet dignity, “that I am going to coolly wire any of my bosom pals and, without so much as a by-your-leave, request that they compose a lewd yarn for my aunt’s rag for the delicately nurtured—” 

“Not lewd. Tastefully titillating.” 

“Be that as it may, Aunt Dahlia, I must issue a _nolle prosequi_. What’s more, I wish to state categorically and without reservation that I believe the whole idea is a positively rotten one.” 

The aunt narrowed her eyes at me for a moment, looking rather as if she wished she had a lorgnette through which to gaze witheringly at me. Then, smiling sweetly, she turned to Jeeves, who had been standing by in an attitude of deferential silence. “Tell me, Jeeves,” she said, “what do _you_ think?” 

Jeeves did not answer at once. His dark eyes gleamed with the light of intelligence, and he knit his brows in contemplation. It was clear that he was giving his answer careful consideration. Aunt Dahlia and self waited, enrapt, for his pronouncement. 

“The idea has merit, madam,” he said at length. 

I reeled. I had scarcely expected Jeeves to take Aunt Dahlia’s side in the matter. After all, if Jeeves has a fault, it is that he is essentially a hidebound reactionary. This, I felt, was just the sort of rannygazoo on which the man would be inclined to take a hard line. After all, I remembered all too well his cold, puff-faced reaction to my own attempt to sing the praises of soft-bosomed shirts with men’s formal evening wear in the pages of the same publication. 

“What!” I yipped. 

Aunt Dahlia grinned at me in a revoltingly smug manner. “There,” she said. “You see? The idea has merit.” 

“Tcha!” I said. A bit extreme, I admit, but this was the sort of situation that calls for extreme measures. “I knew _you_ were off your pistachio, Aunt Dahlia, but now it seems the disease is spreading. I always feared this day would come, Jeeves. That great brain of yours has blown a gasket. The cheese has finally and definitively slipped off your biscuit.” 

“I think not, sir.” 

“Oh, you do, do you? Er, rather, don’t you?” I demanded. “Very well, then. Why don’t you enlighten us as to why this hair-brained idea of my aunt’s isn’t nature’s last word in human dippyness?” 

“Very good, sir. It is my belief that Mrs. Travers’ assessment of modern feminine psychology is essentially correct. Since the rise of the free-love movement in middle of the previous century, women have increasingly embraced their liberation from the repressive societal mores of—” 

“Yes, yes, yes, but dash it,” I interjected, “what about the repressive societal mores of Aunt Agatha?” 

“Agatha has nothing to say about it,” said Aunt Dahlia. “As you so rightly pointed out, it’s my life, and if she tries to shove her oar in, I shall tell her exactly where to stow it.” 

“That’s easy for you to say! But if word gets back to her that I’ve been a party to this depravity, she’ll have my head on a pike. No, you’ll have to find someone else to do your dirty work, Aunt Dahlia. The shot is absolutely not on the board.” 

“Is this Bertie Wooster speaking?” 

“It is.” 

“The same Bertie Wooster whose life I once saved when, as a helpless babe, he nearly choked to death on a rubber comforter?” 

“The very same.” 

“I suppose this is what passes for gratitude among the younger generation. Well, it’s just too bad, Bertie. It really is too bad.” There was a pause, of the pregnant variety. “Anatole really has been in top form the past few weeks, you know,” she said at last. 

I heaved a weary sigh and massaged the throbbing temples. “Very well, Aunt Dahlia,” I said coldly. “A Wooster is man enough to admit when he is fighting a losing battle. I shall do my best to find someone to write these ribald yarns for you, if it will make you happy. But I won’t be held responsible for the consequences.” 

Aunt Dahlia beamed. “I knew you’d see reason, Bertie dear. Now, run along. It’s almost time for tea.”


	2. Chapter 2

My mood was dark as I dressed for dinner a few hours later. Even the prospect of eating one of Anatole’s dinners failed to lift the pea soup fog that had descended heavily upon the Wooster shoulders. 

“Jeeves,” I said with cold hauteur as I shoved in a shirt stud, “I am disappointed in you.” 

“I am sorry to hear that, sir,” he replied. “Might I enquire as to why?” 

“Do not be coy, Jeeves. It would be clear even to the meanest of intellects that you are attempting to score off the young master. There can be no other explanation for the appalling display of non-feudal-spiritedness on your part to which I have recently borne witness.” 

“Sir, I assure you—” 

“I shall have no empty assurances, Jeeves. This is about the concertina I got for little Geraldine, isn’t it?” 

\--- 

Ah, but wait. I fear that my readers must be scratching their heads at this point. “What on God’s green earth is this Wooster on about now?” they may be asking themselves, and they are right to be bewildered. For I have failed, in unravelling my little yarn thus far, to deliver a spot of vital intelligence. Allow me to put you abreast. Let us turn back the pages of time to an incident that had taken place about a week prior to our jaunt down to Brinkley Court. 

If you have read any of my previous narratives, you may be familiar with my friend Charles Edward “Biffy” Biffen. As you may recall, Biffy got himself hitched a few years back to none other than Jeeves’s niece, an actress of sorts by the name of Mabel. The upshot is that the happy union was blessed shortly thereafter with a bouncing baby girl – the b. b. g. in question being the Geraldine of whom I spoke during the above spot of banter with Jeeves. 

This Geraldine was now on the cusp of her fifth birthday, and I had recently obtained a present for her with which I was most frightfully chuffed. Geraldine is one of these bonhomous young pep pills who burst into song and dance at the slightest provocation. Feeling that the child’s musical education ought to be pushed along and all that sort of thing, I went out and bought her a positively lavish little concertina. The thing set me back a full twenty-two quid, but I considered it a small price to pay in the service of promoting the career of a future virtuoso. 

You can imagine my shock and dismay, then, when Jeeves absolutely recoiled at the sight of the thing. 

“I cannot advocate giving the child such a gift, sir,” he’d said, in the soupiest of voices. 

“Well, why not, dash it?” I demanded. “The little tyke will be absolutely dippy about it. And just look at the thing! It’s a beauty.” 

“I do not dispute the aesthetic qualities of the instrument, sir.” 

“Then what is your beef, Jeeves? Come on, man, out with it!” 

He gave me a pained look. “Consider the child’s parents, sir.” 

“I have,” I said austerely, “and I should think they’d be jolly well delighted that Uncle Bertram has taken such an interest in fostering their daughter’s latent musical talents. There will be no further discussion of the matter, Jeeves. The concertina shall be delivered to Geraldine’s doorstep in shiny red paper with a satin ribbon on top in a fortnight, with or without your bally advocacy.” 

“Very good, sir,” Jeeves replied in a voice that lowered the temperature in the room by about ten degrees, and there the matter had rested ever since. 

That is not to say that I didn’t still feel the strain a bit after that. After our conversation, I shoved the thing onto a shelf in my wardrobe for safekeeping. Over the next few days, Jeeves would come across it on occasion while rooting about for my handkerchiefs or something. He would invariably let out a sort of pained, whistling sigh through the nostrils, as if reminded of a time in his youth when a roving gang of delinquent concertinas shoved him off his bicycle and stole his toffee apple. Still, he said no more about the matter, and I had begun to believe that the fellow had chosen to take the high road and let the dead past bury its dead. 

I suppose I should have known better, but I have always been the sort of chap who sees the best in his fellow creatures. In any case, I had no wish to linger over our little unpleasantness or dig into a wound that was clearly still smarting. But if the fellow was going to let the business rankle to the extent that he would go about the place egging my aunt on to turn her respectable periodical into something that was a mere step or two above a Tijuana bible – well, I mean to say! 

The time had come, I realized, to lay bare the ugly truth. 

\--- 

“Well, Jeeves?” I prompted, when he did not respond at once. “Is this, or is it not, about the concertina?” 

At the word “concertina,” Jeeves’s eye took on a glassy, fishlike quality, and a muscle in his jaw spasmed almost imperceptibly. Still, the man persisted in his mulish refusal to make a clean breast of the thing. 

“Oh, no, sir,” he said. “In fact, I had nearly succeeded in expunging the instrument from my thoughts before you mentioned it.” 

“Hmm,” I replied. I said nothing else about it – for I had no desire to belabour a dead horse – but I shot him one of those looks that speak volumes. “At any rate,” I went on, hauling up the well-pressed evening trousers, “I suppose the only thing for it is to get this ghastly business over with. Do you have any suggestions, Jeeves?” 

“Sir?” 

“Dash it, you know what I mean! Who the devil is going to write these blasted stories?” 

“You know a great many writers, sir.” 

I resisted the ungentlemanly urge to chuck a lamp at his head. “Yes, Jeeves,” I said patiently, “believe it or not, I am aware that I know a great many writers. It is a fact to which I am keenly alive. The question is—” I paused to tie my tie in a marked manner “—which one of the blighters can I possibly ask without causing great embarrassment to all and sundry and besmirching the honour of the Wooster name forever?” 

“Mrs. Little comes to mind, sir.” 

I turned from the mirror to boggle directly into his eyeballs. “Mrs. Little! Have you gone completely off the rails, Jeeves? I couldn’t possibly ask a woman! And a married one, at that? Good lord, no. Besides, she’s probably the first person Aunt Dahlia asked.” 

“Perhaps Mr. Sipperly, then, sir?” 

“Old Sippy? After I got him jugged for thirty days without the option for egging him on to pinch that policeman’s helmet? He still crosses to the other side of the street when I run into him on the Strand. And I can’t ask Boko, because he’s off living the life of Riley in Hollywood. He’d have no need to debase himself with this sort of rot. Bicky’s in Colorado, up to his neck in chickens. He hasn’t got time to write a letter these days, much less shoot off a bunch of gingery stories for my aunt’s beastly paper.” 

Jeeves stepped forward and began re-tying my tie with a faraway look on his map. “And Mr. Todd, sir?” 

“What, Rocky? But he’s a poet, Jeeves. I don’t think he goes in for anything much over a hundred words. Those letters to his Aunt Isabel must have been the most ambitious things he ever wrote, and _you_ did most of the legwork on those.” 

“Yes, sir. However, if I may make an observation, the publication of poetry is considerably less lucrative in America today than it was even five years ago. Mr. Todd may well be eager for a more remunerative engagement.” 

“There may be something in that, Jeeves,” I said grudgingly, for we Woosters like to give credit where credit is due. “Very well. I shall wire Rocky first thing in the morning. But I don’t have to like it.” 

“Very good, sir.” 

\--- 

As a matter of fact, I didn’t like it one bit. And as I thought about the prospect more and more, I liked it less and less. I was a silent bread pill maker at dinner, and I managed to out-sombre even Uncle Tom over the after-dinner port. Having finally managed to extricate myself from my genial hosts, I slunk off to my room to have a quiet think and a pensive cigarette. 

My Aunt Dahlia has a tendency to sharpen up the guillotine whenever she finds that a guest has been having a gasper on the premises. It has become my custom, therefore, when the need arises during a visit with this esteemed relative, to lie down with my head in the fireplace and blow smoke up the chimney. That is exactly what I did on this occasion, and as I did so, I began to compose my missive to Rocky aloud. But no matter what I tried, I simply couldn’t seem to get past the opening salvo. 

“Rocky, old top, hope you are well and Aunt Isabel in good health. I say, speaking of aunts . . .” 

I stopped, massaged a weary temple, and tried again. 

“What ho, Rocky. Hope this missive finds you in excellent fettle and all that. How’s the poetry wheeze? Thought you might be in the market for something more substantial, what with that rum Depression business bunging a spanner into the works. As it so happens . . .” 

I winced, shook the lemon, and took another stab at it. 

“Rocky, my dear chap. How would you like to write filthy stories for my beloved old aunt’s weekly magazine for ladies of culture and refinement?” 

I stubbed out the gasper and heaved a mournful sigh. At that moment, the door opened, and Jeeves trickled in. I didn’t have it in me to sit up and greet him. 

“It’s no use, Jeeves,” I groaned into the flue. 

“Sir?” 

“I can’t possibly ask Rocky to do this. The man has his principles, after all.” 

I could not see Jeeves’s face, but his voice was fairly frosty. “Indeed, sir?” 

“Oh, dash it, Jeeves, I know you’ve been convinced he’s some sort of moral leper ever since you found out that he wears his pyjamas to the dinner table. But stop and think for a moment. Consider the chap’s fundamental psychological makeup. Do you remember how he described New York? A ‘festering, heaven-forsaken Gehenna,’ he called it. Why, it was only under the direst of circs that he could be induced to so much as go out dancing after nine PM. That’s why we had to send you out to—” 

And here, I stopped abruptly. For at that moment, the heavens seemed to open, and inspiration suddenly smacked me between the eyes like a thunderbolt. “Jeeves,” I ejaculated, sitting up abruptly and beaning myself on the top of the fireplace, “ow!” 

Jeeves appeared at my side, the finely-chiseled features registering concern. “Are you quite all right, sir?” 

“Never better,” I said, as he hoisted me to my feet and brushed the ash from my hair and shoulders. “Jeeves, I have had one of those things people have.” 

“Sir?” 

“An epiphany, that’s the bird! The solution to our little problem has come to me with crystal clarity.” 

“I am most gratified to hear it, sir. If I may ask . . .?” 

“You may, Jeeves. _You_ are going to write those stories.” 

I was satisfied to note that this went over pretty big. Both of the man’s eyebrows shot up a full two millimeters. “I, sir?” 

“Yes, you, Jeeves. After all, if you think Aunt Dahlia’s wheeze is such a ripe one, why not rally round and come to the aid of the party? Heaven knows, for a man of your prodigious talents, it ought to be child’s play to toss off a handful titillating stories. You will write under a _nom de plume_ , naturally. Not a soul need know it was you but me, Aunt Dahlia, and yourself. Aunt Dahlia gets her writer, the Wooster pride remains more or less intact, and no harm is done beyond the catastrophic explosion that will undoubtedly occur when Aunt Agatha reads next week’s issue. If there is a flaw in this scheme, I certainly can’t spot it. Can you, Jeeves?” 

“Only one, sir.” 

“Oh? Name it.” 

“I am not a writer, sir.” 

“Oh, piffle,” I said, waving a dismissive hand. “I saw those letters of Rocky’s. They were full of life and sparkling with detail. Some of the ripest stuff I’ve read.” 

“You are most kind, sir, but I merely provided the notes from which Mr. Todd worked.” 

I gave him a look. “I’ve read Rocky’s stuff, Jeeves.” 

“I confess I may have been responsible for the lion’s share of the composition of those particular missives, sir.” 

“Well, there you are, then. What say you, Jeeves? Will you do it?” 

He was silent for a moment, an inscrutable look on his dial. And then, with the merest hint of a smile, he replied: “I shall endeavour to give satisfaction, sir.”


	3. Chapter 3

It’s amazing how one’s outlook on a venture can change when one suddenly finds oneself in a position to offer a tidy solution. I had been viewing every aspect of Aunt Dahlia’s scheme with a sort of creeping dread, but now that I had hit upon the idea of putting the whole thing in Jeeves’s capable hands, my attitude changed to one of kindly indulgence. 

Apart from feeling fairly chuffed with myself for fixing the whole thing up in such a spiffing fashion, I also found myself consumed with a lively anticipation. As far as what Jeeves was going to dish up in the way of spicy literature, I hadn’t the slightest inkling. But whatever it was, I was prepared to bet a goodish sum that it would be pretty hot stuff. 

So it was that the next morning, having climbed outside a few rashers of bacon and a cold egg or two at the breakfast sideboard, I floated into my aunt’s study full of beans, buck, and cheerful good tidings. The uncharacteristically dark and brooding Wooster of the previous night was gone, replaced by the jolly old self once more. 

“What ho, aunt of my bosom,” I said as I biffed into the beloved relation’s presence, beaming beneficently. “What ho, what ho, what ho!” 

Aunt Dahlia glared up at me from the surging sea of papers scattered across her desk, one of which she had just been attacking brutishly with an ink blotter. “What are you looking so cheerful about, you pestilential young pipsqueak?” she boomed, sending a sheaf of papers cascading to the floor in a swirling, snowy drift. “Can’t you see I’m doing the Boudoir’s books, for whatever it’s worth? I am two weeks behind on paying that blasted lady novelist from Brighton, and soon the printer will be breaking down my door as well. So unless you’ve come to talk business, kindly go and boil your head.” 

“Good morning to you too, old thing,” I said airily. “As it so happens, I have come bearing news that is sure to return the roses to your cheeks and the spring to your step. I have found you a writer!” 

The aged ancestor peered at me intently for a moment as if trying to determine whether or not I was pulling her leg, and if so, what exactly she ought to do about it. “Indeed?” she said. I suppose hanging around Jeeves so much was starting to rub off on her. “That seems like awfully quick work.” 

“Yes, Aunt Dahlia,” I replied, shoving my hands in my pockets and rocking back and forth on my heels in a self-satisfied manner. “I am pleased to say that I put the old Wooster grey matter to work last night, and it almost immediately delivered the goods. I have just the man for the job, and as it turns out, he was directly under our noses the whole time.” 

“The Devil you say!” cried the aunt. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, child! Who is this mystery man?” 

I spread the hands dramatically, like a magician revealing that the beazel he has just seemingly chopped the middle section out of is still all in once piece. “Jeeves,” I said. 

“Jeeves?” 

“Jeeves.” 

“What do you mean exactly, when you say ‘Jeeves’?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes at me. 

“I mean Jeeves,” I said patiently. “You’ve met him, I think. My valet, you know. Slenderish chappie, good-looking, dark hair, about so high—” 

“Don’t test me, young Bertie, I’ve had a very long morning. Are you telling me that Jeeves has agreed to write the new feature for the Boudoir?” 

“That is precisely what I am telling you. What’s more, he seemed delighted to be asked. My dear old aunt, your troubles are at an end!” 

A sort of awed look crept over her florid map. “You mean to tell me that Jeeves is a writer, too? Can the man do everything?” 

“Good lord, what a question. Of course he can. He’s Jeeves!” 

“Well, bless my soul. He really is a marvel, isn’t he? Have you read any of his work?” 

“Just a few letters and whatnot, but I can assure you, they were pure dynamite. Put your mind at ease, Auntie. With Jeeves on the case, Milady’s Boudoir is in the most capable of hands.” 

She smiled fondly up at me and reached out to give my arm a pat. “Bertie, my lamb, you are an angel in human form. Yes, I’m sure that whatever Jeeves delivers will be absolutely the feline’s nightwear. Thanks a million. You may have just saved an old woman’s pocketbook.” 

“Think nothing of it.” 

“And tell Jeeves he has my undying gratitude . . . and a generous I. O. U.” 

\--- 

We spent the next few days basking in the luxuries of Aunt Dahlia’s hospitality. She set Jeeves up with a typewriter in a sunny little room overlooking the kitchen gardens, and he whiled away the afternoons hard at his task. On the occasions when I peeked in on the chap, I invariably found him either typing away with a snifter of brandy at his side, or tucked into the corner chair taking a well-deserved breather, his beezer buried in Dostoevsky’s latest. 

“All right, Jeeves?” I would ask in a hushed voice, for I didn’t want to throw him off his stride. 

“Oh, yes, sir,” he would reply, nodding up at me with a benevolent twinkle in his eye, and then he would smack back into it. 

He always looked so dashed content and at his ease, and it gave me a sort of rummy glow about the midsection. I couldn’t have said why. Just a sense of satisfaction, I suppose, at having played my little part in setting everything right. Any lingering dudgeon about the episode of the concertina evaporated like the morning dew. 

I also found my misgivings about Aunt Dahlia’s scheme trickling away. After all, I reasoned, if anyone could be counted upon to handle the material with good taste and discretion, it was good old Jeeves. 

\--- 

“How’s it coming along?” Aunt Dahlia asked me one afternoon about five days in, having anxiously drawn me aside as I passed her in the hall on the way up to my room. 

“Oh, splendidly,” I replied. “Simply topping. Jeeves tells me he expects to have a draft done by this evening.” 

She clasped a hand to her bosom and reverently turned her gaze heavenward. “Lord bless him and keep him! What a man, Bertie! Have you read any of it yet?” 

“Not a word.” 

“Well, let me know the instant it’s ready for public consumption. I’ll be waiting with bated breath.” 

I assured her that I would, and slid off to my quarters with a song on my lips. When I arrived, I found Jeeves in my room, flitting silently amongst the trousers. 

“What ho, Jeeves,” I said cheerfully. “Taking a break from the old scrivener’s bench?” 

“No, sir,” he replied. “As a matter of fact, I have finished my work.” 

My heart turned a couple quick somersaults. “Really, Jeeves?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Golly, Jeeves! Well, well, well! Ahead of schedule, at that. Aunt Dahlia will be delighted. Good work, old egg.” 

“Thank you, sir.” 

“I must say, Jeeves, I’ve been simply dying to know what you’ve come up with. Er, I don’t suppose I could have a look at it – before you pass it on to Aunt D., I mean?” 

He paused for an almost imperceptible moment, and then replied, “Certainly, sir. You will find the manuscript on your bedside table.” Before I could answer, he oiled out. 

A brief investigation revealed that the man spoke the truth. A stack of neatly typed pages rested on the bedside table, exactly as he had indicated. I snatched it up and bunged myself into an armchair, every nerve in the old corpus buzzing with inquisitiveness. 

I read the whole thing through. I couldn’t say how long it took me, for time ground to a standstill as I took it all in. When I was finished, I set it down, stunned. Having done that, I picked it up, read it through a second time, and set it down again. 

Slowly, I crossed the room and fixed myself a pensive whiskey and s. After a moment’s consideration, I fixed another. And then I rang for Jeeves.


	4. Chapter 4

“Ah, Jeeves,” I said, when my man streamed across the threshold a few moments later. “Might I have a word?” 

“Of course, sir.” 

“I have just read your story with considerable interest.” 

“I am glad to hear it, sir.” 

I indicated a chair. “Would you care to have a seat, Jeeves?” 

“No, sir, thank you.” 

“Have a seat, Jeeves.” 

“Very good, sir.” 

“A drink, Jeeves?” 

“If you insist, sir.” 

“I do.” 

“Thank you, sir.” 

Having pressed the readied glass into his hand, I took a seat in the armchair across from him and took up the manuscript once more. “Well,” I said, flapping the thing absently and taking a long swig from my own glass. “Well, well, well, what?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“You don’t mind if I make a few comments, do you, Jeeves?” 

He elevated an eyebrow at me. “Of course not, sir. I was, in fact, desirous of soliciting your opinion.” 

“Ah, splendid.” I shoved a little more w. and s. over the larynx. “Well, er, your grammar is unimpeachable, naturally.” 

“Thank you, sir.” 

“Dashed clever, too, the historical stuff, and all that. And I’m terribly impressed with all the atmospheric bits you’ve shoved in.” 

“You are most kind, sir.” 

“But—I mean—I think—that is to say—” 

“Sir?” 

I passed an anxious hand over the dewy brow. “Look, Jeeves, maybe it would help if I just . . . read a bit of it out.” 

“As you wish, sir.” 

“Right ho, then,” I said, dropping my gaze to the pages on my lap and trying not to feel his dark eyes scorching twin holes in the top of my skull. “Let us begin with this bit where the footman fellow is gassing on about seeing the countess in her negligee: 

“‘The most difficult were those moments when she opened the door to Sergei in her dressing gown, an act both brazen and innocent in equal measures. He could see the tops of her breasts, like two clots of cream risen to the top of the vat. How different she was from the girls he had known on the farm in Kaluga Oblast, whose breasts were hard and russet as the potatoes that they clawed ruthlessly from the cold earth. 

‘How Sergei longed to lose himself within her, as he lost himself daily in the flashing gaze of her cerulean orbs. How fervently he wished to plunge into the burbling fount of her maidenhood, to find what precious pearls lay tucked within the folds of the great clam nestled in her pelagic depths. His ardour rose before him, hard and proud, like a fleshly obelisk erected by some ancient and primal civilization.’” 

I slowly raised my eyes to meet Jeeves’s, and gazed into them searchingly. “‘The burbling fount of her maidenhood,’ Jeeves?” I asked quietly. “I am only trying to understand.” 

He stiffened, and the stuffed frog mantle set in with unusual severity. “It is a metaphor, sir.” 

“I know it’s a metaphor, Jeeves,” I replied, drawing myself up. “I know a metaphor when I see one. I might even have employed a metaphor once or twice myself. But what I am asking—the thing I am searching for . . . the crux, or nub, of the matter, if you will—is why?” 

“Sir?” 

“Oh, come now, Jeeves. Surely you can see that this is all just a bit too . . . too . . . Well, it’s just too _too_ , if you know what I mean.” 

“I fear I do not, sir,” said Jeeves, in a pinched sort of voice. 

It dawned upon me, with a leaden feeling about the lower numbles, that my careless words had socked the chap directly in his tender sensibilities. I became aware of a guilty prickling along the back of my neck. Still, I saw no choice but to forge ahead. This thing could not be allowed to go on unchecked. 

“Well, that’s all right, Jeeves,” I said gently. “For now, let us skim lightly over the passage in question.” 

“As you wish, sir.” 

“We can return to it at some later date, as yet to be determined.” 

“Very good, sir.” 

“But surely, Jeeves,” I said, allowing a pleading note to creep into my voice, “surely you must concede that this bit here could use a pinch—just an additional iota—of, er, restraint?” 

“To what are you referring, sir?” 

“I speak of the passage in which Sergei and Alexei come to blows over the countess, Jeeves. Surely you know the one.” I took another swig of the needful, and read again: 

“‘Alexei’s pert buttocks clenched as he grappled with the older man, their lithe bodies intertwining like serpents, their heaving flanks slicked with perspiration. As Sergei gazed into the limpid pools of Alexei’s azure oculi, he suddenly understood why the appalling youth stirred the countess’ passions so deeply. He was an exceedingly beautiful young man, the loveliness of his fine patrician features being marred only by the presence of an unsightly flaxen mustache that broke hideously over the crest of his soft, bee-stung lip. In the distance, a bear uttered an anguished roar.’” 

I lowered the document once more with trembling hands, and spoke with a quiet urgency. “Just answer me this, Jeeves. Where the devil are their bally trousers?” 

“Surely the gentlemen would not wish to wrinkle them in the course of their exertions, sir.” 

I rose and moved to the mantelpiece, where I pensively broke a figurine of the Infant Samuel in Prayer. 

“Jeeves,” I said, when at last I regained the power of speech, “might I suggest, as one writer to another, I mean . . . I wondered if I might, er, make an edit here and there. Nothing extravagant. Just the merest of tweaks, in the interest of, ah, brevity. After all, these modern readers go in for the cold, hard, streamlined narrative. ‘Economical prose’ is the word of the day amongst the literary set, don’t you know.” 

Jeeves had by this time risen as well. He stood gazing at me like an affronted halibut on a fishmonger’s slab throughout my entire monologue. 

“It is most kind of you to offer, sir,” he replied glacially, “but surely any editorial decisions should be left in the capable hands of Mrs. Travers.” 

I leaped like the high hills. “Mrs. Travers!” I cried, clutching desperately at his sleeve. “You don’t actually mean to give this to my aunt, do you? Good God, Jeeves, she can’t read this story in its current state. You’ll give the poor woman a coronary!” 

“I have already delivered a copy to her desk, sir.” 

Having uttered an anguished roar, I legged it for Aunt Dahlia’s study.


	5. Chapter 5

To arrive at the entrance to my aunt’s inner sanctum was, for Bertram, the work of an instant. The door was shut, but a faint gurgling noise filtered through the woodwork from within. I wrenched open the door and bunged myself across the threshold on winged feet. Aunt Dahlia was wilted over her desk, her face buried in her arms, wheezing like an asthmatic rhinoceros. I rushed to her side, fearing the worst. 

“Oh, Aunt Dahlia,” I cried, kneeling beside the crumpled relative and wrapping an arm around her heaving shoulders. “Are you all right? Speak to me!” 

Slowly, she raised her head and turned to gaze at me wonderingly, with a face that more strongly resembled a beetroot than anything human. “P-p-p-potatoes, Bertie!” she said in a strangled whisper. Then, having given the top of the desk a forceful slap, she chucked her head back and let out a howl of laughter that rattled the windowpanes and brought down showers of plaster from the ceiling. 

I boggled at the woman, nonplussed. “You’re not upset?” I asked faintly. 

“Upset!” she bellowed, wiping streaming tears from her incandescent mug with a corner of her shawl. “I haven’t had this much fun since Spink-Bottle distributed the school prizes at Market Snodsberry.” She scooped up her copy of Jeeves’s nightmarish composition and rattled it at me. “Have you read this, Bertie?”

I winced, for the wound she probed was a fresh one. “Twice. With a second encore for select passages. I kept thinking I’d suddenly wake up in a cold sweat and find that it was all just a horrific dream.” 

“It’s exquisite,” said Aunt Dahlia reverently. “Did you see the part about the ‘turgid scepter of his avidity’?” 

“Haven’t I suffered enough?” 

“What about the bit where their love was ‘slow and majestic and gasping, like the coupling of two tortoises of the Steppe’?” 

“Spare me, I beg of you!” By this time I had risen and begun casting about the room for the nearest bottle of ardent spirits. But then a sudden, terrible thought struck me, and I stopped, the corpuscles turning to ice in my veins. I turned slowly to face her. “Oh, God, Aunt Dahlia—you’re not planning to _print_ the accursed thing, are you?” 

“Why not?” she demanded, with a lunatic gleam in her eye. “The Boudoir’s sunk, anyway. Let it go out in a blaze of glory! Oh, stop making that noise, Bertie. I mostly jest.” 

“Well, I jolly well wish you wouldn’t,” I said, a trifle petulantly. I unshipped a groan that came up from the soles of my immaculately polished co-respondents. “This is all my fault! I should have trusted my better judgment and given the whole business the shove. But when I put Jeeves up to writing the thing, it never occurred to me for an instant that he’d . . . that he’d . . .” 

“That he’d what?” 

“Be bad at it!” I blurted. 

The aunt clicked her tongue sympathetically. “There, there. How could you have known?” She gazed off into the distance, a look of wonderment crossing her dial. “How could _anyone_ have known that such secrets lurked beneath that stolid and respectable surface? Even a gem of Jeeves’s cut must have a defect somewhere, I suppose. Perhaps he’s not so far above us mortals after all.” 

“Perhaps it could be salvaged,” I said, none too resolutely. “A judicious tweak here, a minor excision there . . .” 

She shook the bean. “Bertie, my poor pup, there’s not a hope in Hell. For that story to appear in next week’s issue, it would have to go to the printer’s first thing tomorrow morning. It would take nothing less than a miracle to get a stinkerino of this magnitude ready for public consumption in less than twenty-four hours’ time. I’d say we put it up to Jeeves, but . . . well.” 

I admit that at this juncture, I was beginning to feel pretty well defeated. The shoulders drooped, and the heart was leaden. “I’m so sorry, old egg. I feel responsible for the whole beastly mess. But promise me you won’t give up on the _Boudoir_ just yet.” 

“What else is there to do?” asked the aunt, spreading her hands in supplication, if supplication is the word. “We can’t very well go to Jeeves. There’s nothing else for it, Bertie. It was a long shot to begin with. You did your best.” 

Just then, I was struck by another of my sudden inspirations. “Let _me_ pay off the mag’s debts!” I said, brightening like an incandescent bulb. For if there’s one thing guaranteed to chuff the dourest of Woosters, it’s the idea that one might give a floundering loved one a bit of goose. 

“No!” cried Aunt Dahlia, aghast.

“Why not, dearest A.? At least let me pay off the most pressing arrears. That would buy us enough time to scare up a proper solution to this briny predicament, Jeeves or no Jeeves. Let me pop off and fetch my chequebook, and I shall have you fixed up in a trice.”

She reared up like an affronted puff adder. “You seem to forget, young louse, that I too have the blood of the Woosters flowing through my veins. There are some depths to which I simply will not stoop. Blackmail? Yes. Larceny? In a heartbeat. But I draw the line at touching a nephew for money. I won’t have it.” 

“All right, Aunt Dahlia, all right,” I said, recognizing a hopeless venture when I saw one. “Just say you’ll give me one more week to find a way to save the _Boudoir_. That’s all I ask.” 

“Oh, why not,” she said with a shrug, tossing Jeeves’s manuscript on top of a teetering stack of papers with an air of wild abandon. “I suppose I’ve got nothing more to lose, except perhaps for my one or two remaining marbles.” 

“But, dash it, what shall I say to Jeeves?” 

“Nothing at all, dear,” she said, giving me a kindly pat on the hand. “I’ll break the bad news. It’s one of the many solemn duties of this benighted business that I shall not miss one whit.” 

With a bowed-down bean and aching heart, I trickled out. As the door shut behind me, I heard a gale of helpless mirth and a muffled cry of “Potatoes!” 

\--- 

When I returned to my room, I found that Jeeves was absent. However, my copy of the dreaded story still lay where I had left it. I wondered, briefly, how many copies of the thing were in existence, and shuddered. I pondered commending the thing to the bosom of the fireplace, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I moved to my wardrobe, with some idea of shoving it away in the back of a drawer beneath a stack of socks. 

But as I held the manuscript in my hands, I found myself strangely compelled to glance over it again. And once I began glancing, I couldn’t tear myself away from the bally thing. Before I knew it, I had read it over twice more. 

It struck me as no less heinous than it had on the first go round – in fact, with each reading, it seemed that fresh horrors emerged that I had somehow missed with each preceding perusal. But there was something about it that affected me strangely. I suppose it was the mere idea that such thoughts could even exist within the brain of a supremely dignified cove like Jeeves, let alone flow from his pen. I found myself growing peculiarly agitated, and distinctly warmish under the collar. 

I don’t know how long I stood there, enrapt, before a quiet cough from somewhere to the south-east alerted me to the fact that Jeeves was among those present. I gave a startled yawp and leaped about five feet in the air, then quickly shoved the stack of papers into the nearest drawer and turned to face my man. 

“What ho, Jeeves,” I said, a bit unsteadily. 

“Good evening, sir. I did not mean to startle you. Are you feeling well, sir? You appear quite flushed.” 

“Oh, rather,” I said, attempting an airy laugh. “I was merely doing a few light Swedish exercises before you came in.” 

“I see, sir.” 

“Good lord, I suppose it must be about time to dress for dinner. Tempus whatsit, eh?” 

“Precisely, sir,” said Jeeves. “Shall I lay out your evening wear?” 

As he stood there awaiting my answer, the blighter looked just as impassive and dignified as ever. I writhed like a worm on a hook under his dark and solemn gaze. 

“Er, no, Jeeves,” I said at length, addressing a spot on the wall just behind his left ear. “I think I’d rather dress alone tonight, if you don’t mind.” 

I sensed a minute lifting of an eyebrow out of the corner of my eye. “As you wish, sir,” said Jeeves, and biffed off. 

If I didn’t know better, I’d have said the man sounded a trifle hurt.


	6. Chapter 6

After dinner, I crept off to bed early. My spirits were hardly buoyed up by Aunt Dahlia’s assurances that she would deliver the killing blow to Jeeves’s blossoming literary aspirations with the utmost delicacy and tact. I don’t know exactly how many winks I got that night, but I imagine that to say “forty” would be stretching the point beyond credibility. I tossed and turned between the sheets, tormented by visions of lissome Russian blighters wrestling in the nude while scads of bears looked on in alarm. 

I awoke the next day with the distinct sensation of having been rode hard and put away wet. Still, I attempted to plaster on a sanguine and sympathetic façade when Jeeves floated in with the morning oolong, for my heart bled for the poor fellow. 

“What ho, Jeeves,” I said gently as he handed me the steaming cuppa. 

“Good morning, sir,” he replied. His tone betrayed no particular angst, but I could only imagine what spiritual agonies lurked beneath the skillfully taxidermied exterior. After all, if there was one thing his ghastly excursion into the realm of _belles lettres_ had made abundantly clear, it was that Jeeves was in fact a man of hidden depths and smouldering passions. Which just goes to show, you never can tell. 

At any rate, it seemed to me that the moment had come to apply a bit of the old soothing balsam. I proceeded to do so. 

“I say, Jeeves,” I ventured tentatively, pausing to dip my blushing beak into the restoring brew, “I hope you’re not too terribly disappointed.” 

“Oh, no, sir.” 

“Rough business, eh, this writing wheeze? I know all too well how hard it is to pour your blood, sweat, and tears into a fruity slab of prose, only for it to meet a brutal end on the editorial chopping block. Take that thing I wrote on ‘What the Well-Dressed Man is Wearing,’ Jeeves. You remember that, I trust.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“It stung like the dickens, giving up that bit about the soft-bosomed shirts. And yet, in the end, I was forced to concede that it was the right and just thing. Painful, of course, but one carries on. One rises on the stepping stones of one’s dead self to higher things.” 

“Very true, sir.” 

“Anyway, I hope you won’t let this whole experience sour you on writing. I wouldn’t want you to go away thinking your efforts were completely wasted. Why, there are several bits that, with a bit of polishing, could be dashed compelling. Take that final scene with Sergei and the countess, for instance.” 

But here, I faded out. For as I started to speak of the passage in question, it began to play out in my mind’s eye. This was, in itself, nothing to get the breeze up about to any great extent. After all, I had read the damn thing about half a dozen times, and the details were fairly vividly seared into my memory. 

But then a dashed rummy thing happened. 

I could not say for sure why it happened. Perhaps it was simply owing to the fact that the man was standing directly in my midst at the time. But on this particular occasion, my long-suffering grey cells abruptly decided to cast in the role of Sergei none other than Jeeves himself. 

I sat there silently for some moments, utterly transfixed by the notion of Jeeves pressing a series of tender, open-mouthed kisses onto the upturned throat of the countess. It was Jeeves, with his shirt unbuttoned at the collar and his hair tumbling over his brow, who gently tugged open the ribbon that held the countess’s dressing gown in place. It was Jeeves who ran his strong, work-worn hands over her smooth and heaving—

“Sir?” said Jeeves. 

“Ah!” I replied, violently introducing the contents of my teacup to the front of my heliotrope pyjamas.

Jeeves surged round with a towel and began deftly swabbing the soggy upper regions of my torso. I was still reeling from the whole experience – to the extent that one can reel while propped up on a couple of pillows in the middle of a spacious four-poster – when he suddenly seized the edge of my coverlet, apparently intent on whisking it away to parts unknown to be properly de-teaified.

Aghast, I wrenched the coverlet from Jeeves’s hands and yanked it up to my chin. “Leave it!” I cried, with perhaps a trifle more volume than was strictly necessary. 

Slightly eccentric behaviour, I’ll admit, and probably something at which Sir Roderick Glossop would have looked askance. However, it may reassure my concerned public to know that my daffy conduct in this particular instance was susceptible of a ready explanation.

The fact of the matter was, my little reverie had produced in me a rather striking anatomical reaction. Not to put too fine a point on things, it had caused my fleshly obelisk to stand up and take notice. What’s more, Jeeves’s ministrations with the towel had done nothing to remedy the situation. I had no desire to have my inflamed nether portions unveiled to the world, tea or no tea. 

Jeeves narrowed his eyes at me almost imperceptibly. “It is quite wet, sir,” he said, in the sort of voice a governess might use when explaining to a particularly dimwitted child why he must change out of his favourite union suit.

“I know it’s wet, blast it!” I said testily, crushing the coverlet to my chest with an iron grip. “Even I am capable of recognizing a wet coverlet when I see one. ‘What ho,’ I said to myself just now when I saw the thing, ‘a wet coverlet!’ Well, can’t a free-born Englishman recline under a wet coverlet if he so chooses? Did the ancestral Wooster fight in the battle of Agincourt just so his descendants could one day have their coverlets ripped from them by an unending stream of recalcitrant valets?”

Jeeves drew himself up to his full height. “As you wish, sir,” he said in a voice so soupy you could dip a dinner roll in it. “Will there be anything else, sir? Very good, sir.” And he beetled out with his chin held aloft. 

\---

Having scoured the torso and donned a moody heather-mixture lounge, I ignored the summonses of the breakfast sideboard and legged it for the wide open spaces. My rummy encounter with Jeeves had left me flustered and disturbed. I hoped that a little bracing country air and a gasper would help clear the swimming onion.

I couldn’t say whether I was more pipped with Jeeves, or myself. On the one hand, what business did Jeeves’s foul literary efforts have, stirring up the animal passions in the Wooster loins like this? But on the other hand, what business did the a. ps. in the Wooster loins have, being thus stirred?

If one thing was perfectly clear, it was that Jeeves’s story must not be allowed to remain at large. The thing was a public menace. Precautionary steps, I decided, would have to be taken.


	7. Chapter 7

Though I was firmly resolved to take action, the nature of that action as yet eluded me. Some sort of vague idea was beginning to take shape within the addled coconut, but it never had time to reach fruition. For as I passed beneath the window of Aunt Dahlia’s study in the course of my moody perambulations, I recalled the sight of Jeeves’s manuscript resting atop a stack of papers therein, and I was struck by a sudden, wild impulse. No sooner had the thought popped into my skull than I found myself slithering in through the open window.

Almost immediately, it became clear that the venture was a bust. I was about halfway in when I heard a shriek like a train whistle, and looked up to find myself face to face with the parlourmaid. She was brandishing a feather duster and boggling at me with saucer-like eyes. By the time I got my tongue sufficiently disentangled from my tonsils to attempt a “Steady on, old girl, it’s only Bertram,” or words to that effect, she had already scarpered.

I attempted to abort the ill-conceived undertaking by performing a backwards version of the aforementioned slither, but some portion of my jacket became entangled with an ornate window latch. I found myself flailing helplessly with about one quarter of the corpus inside Brinkley Court, and the other seventy-five percent protruding into its bucolic grounds.

I was just asking death where its bally sting was when an unseen hand attached itself to the back of my trousers and yanked with considerable force. My jacket came loose with a hideous ripping noise, and I tumbled out of the window and fell to earth I knew not where.

When the fog lifted and breath more or less returned to my lungs, I found myself staring up at a scarlet-faced and looming Aunt Dahlia. I also noted Seppings lurking in the background, wearing a driving cap and looking like a mildly concerned sheep. “Hoy!” I wheezed.

“Hoy, yourself!” boomed the aunt, prodding me with a smart but practical suede shoe. “Would you mind telling me what the devil you thought you were doing?”

“Well, I—”

“On second thought, don’t tell me. You know how I love a good mystery. Were you looking for some stationery so that you could send a nice letter to the rest of the Huns, Attila dear?”

Before I could formulate a cutting retort, the window banged open and Uncle Tom’s wizened dome emerged. “Where is he, Dahlia?” he cried. “Did you run him off? Did you see him? I’ll ring the police!”

The ancestor waved him off with a weary gesture. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Tom, but there’s no need to summon the constabulary. There’s no burglar. It’s just my nephew being a priceless ass again.”

Uncle Tom gave me the sort of look a peevish pterodactyl might give a plesiosaur that has just nabbed the fish he’d been eying. “Oh,” he said mournfully, and his head vanished back from whence it came.

“As it happens, Aunt Dahlia,” I said coldly, waving various limbs about in a valiant but bootless struggle against the harsh reign of gravity, “I was trying to find your copy of that damn manuscript. The world’s not safe for democracy as long as that thing’s running around loose, and I intend to do something about it once and for all.”

“And what, exactly, do you intend to do?” asked Aunt Dahlia, fixing me with a gimlet eye. “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she added, seizing a passing arm and hauling me to my feet.

“Well, I hadn’t quite worked that part out. I’m still not decided between tying a brick to it and tossing it in the Marianas Trench, or attaching it to a rocket and shooting it into the sun.” 

The aunt quivered from base to apex. “You’ll do nothing of the sort, you contemptible worm!” she vociferated. “Besides, if you’re worried about the story falling into the hands of some dastardly enemy agent, you can put your fears to rest right now. It’s currently stashed away in the drawer of my bedside table, safely under lock and key.”

“And what, exactly, is it doing in there, aged a.?” I asked, although it occurred to me almost as soon as the words left my lips that this was one of those questions to which I might prefer not to know the answer.

“Keeping me company,” she said wistfully. “I intend to keep it there forever, so that I might pull it out from time to time when the nights are cold and empty, and gaze at it fondly, remembering better times. That story is a priceless jewel, Bertie, and I will kindly ask you to keep your grubby mitts off of it.” 

I gave her a pitying look. “I happen to know an eminent nerve specialist, if you’re in need of one.” 

“Ha! You should talk. I’m not the one going around with my posterior hanging out of the windows of respectable country houses.” 

“You are absolutely certain it is safe?” I demanded.

“Absolutely.”

“Very well,” I said grudgingly. “But I don’t like it.”

“Too bad.”

Just then, there was a gentle cough – not of Jeeves pedigree, but certainly a similar species – and Seppings drifted forward, clutching his driving cap to his chest in a deferential manner. I leapt like a skewered trout, having quite forgotten in my agitated state that the cove was with us.

“If you do not require my assistance, madam—” he began.

“No, Seppings,” said Aunt Dahlia, “that will be all.”

“Thank you, madam. Good morning, Mr. Wooster.”

I couldn’t say exactly what it was, but as I looked at Seppings, a sense of foreboding settled on my shoulders like an icy shroud. Something in the fellow’s manner troubled me. “I say, Seppings,” I chimed in anxiously, “have you been running an errand of some sort?”

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I returned not fifteen minutes ago from delivering the proofs for this week's issue of _Milady’s Boudoir_ to the printer.”

“Oh, yes?” I said absently. “Good chap. Everything in order, then, what?”

“Yes, sir.” An odd expression passed over his dial. “Mr. Jeeves was most insistent that I make the delivery promptly this morning. He handed me the parcel himself.”

“He what?” I yipped.

“He what?” barked Aunt Dahlia.

We look’d at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a rather badly trampled flower bed in the county of Worcestershire.

“Bertie, dear,” said Aunt Dahlia after a moment, “where is your copy?”

Without a word, I turned and legged it for my bedroom.

\--- 

It did not take long to confirm my darkest suspicions. I couldn’t remember exactly which drawer I had bunged the manuscript into, so I turned out all of them. In less than a minute, my room was gaily festooned in gentlemanly hosiery and undergarments. But search as I might, I could detect not even the merest fibre of onionskin paper amidst the detritus. The thing had definitively vanished. I marched to the bell pull and gave it a violent throttle.

After what seemed an eternity, Jeeves popped in like a sleek and silent cork. I saw him give the room a quick east to west, and self a somewhat more leisurely north to south. The effect must have been striking, for I almost fancied that I saw a flicker of emotion ripple across the still and silent waters of his dial, and he paled slightly beneath the tan.

“Are you well, sir?” he asked.

I ignored his query, for I was in no mood for desultory chit-chat. I waved a manic arm or two at the wreckage around me. “It’s gone, Jeeves. I’ve looked everywhere. I can see only one reasonable solution to this mystery, and I don’t think I have to jolly well tell you what that is.”

“Sir?” he asked mildly.

“Jeeves,” I said in even tones, having hitched a calming breath into the lungs, “I know I haven’t got much of an intellect, but that’s no reason for you to go around insulting the little chap. Where is that manuscript?”

He calmly pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket and gave it a deco before answering. “Why, I fancy it must be at the printer’s by now, sir,” he said.

I thrashed in spiritual agony. “But why, Jeeves?” I wailed. “How _could_ you? What possible reason could you have for committing such a deranged act? Is this the feudal spirit, Jeeves? Is this how you honour the proud legacy of the Jeeveses? Is this how you repay the trust and generosity of your kind hostess?”

Jeeves did not bat an elegantly turned eyelash. “If you will pardon my saying so, sir, it is my belief that Mrs. Travers has misjudged the efficacy of the piece. As the lady herself stated, there is no publicity like a scandal. I have no doubt that the publication of the story will bring about the desired end.”

“It’ll bring about an end, all right! The end of my Uncle Tom’s stomach lining, for one. Not to mention the end of _Milady’s Boudoir_ , and whatever remains of my good and deserving aunt’s reputation.” I eyed Jeeves keenly for a moment, feeling the steel enter into my soul. I couldn’t remember a time when I had been more piqued with the chap. “I see what is happening,” I said. “You have failed to grasp the true gravity of the situation.”

“How so, sir?” 

“What I have to say may wound you, Jeeves, but the time for around-the-bush beating has passed. You are still operating under the illusion that Aunt Dahlia objected to publishing your slab of literary gorgonzola merely on the grounds that it is too hot to handle. Aunt Dahlia is a kind soul, despite her hard-boiled façade. But in this case, she has done you a disservice by slipping on the kid gloves and trying to let you down gently. The fact of the matter is, it’s bally awful.”

To my astonishment, a pinkish hue suffused Jeeves’s cheeks. “Surely that is a matter of opinion, sir,” he said.

“No, Jeeves,” I replied. I could feel my resolve beginning to waver, but I persisted. “That’s the simple, homespun truth. The thing’s insidious. It’s the kind of prose that worms its way into your cranium and then settles in and proceeds to pick out drapes. It would be both reckless and irresponsible to unleash such a thing on a weary post-war world.”

I moved for the door, and the blighter actually stepped into my path. “Where are you going, sir?” he demanded.

You could have bowled me over with a toothpick. I mean to say, it’s one thing to have one’s valet openly defy one. I won’t say I was used to it, for it always comes as a bit of a shock to the system when it happens, but there was well-established precedent. It’s quite another to have him bodily block one's egress and demand things at one.

“To the printer’s, dash it. Now stand aside, man.” I bobbed left, and Jeeves bobbed with me. I dipped right, and he followed suit. It was beginning to feel like some sort of beastly foxtrot.

“Surely you do not intend to go out in your present condition,” said Jeeves, cool as a lorry full of cucumbers.

“Eh? What? How do you mean, ‘present condition’? What present condition? My only condition is that of being fed up to the eye-teeth with your oompus-boompus, and I’m growing fed-uppeder by the second. Now gangway! I go to fight for King and Country!” 

Jeeves positively glowered at me. You could have bowled me over with a second toothpick. He then made a sudden movement with his hand, and I thought for a dizzying moment that he was about to fetch me a clip on the side of the head. Instead, he snatched something from behind my ear, like a magician producing a coin for an eager tot. But instead of a shiny tuppence, he brandished a disgruntled-looking beetle. A red one, as I recall, with black legs.

“Your suit, sir,” he said, shoving a rather nasty sibilation onto the words “suit” and “sir,” “is in a state of disarray. There is potting soil on your trousers, and the cuff of your jacket is torn. We shall not dwell upon the subject of your hair. Suffice it to say that you cannot present yourself publicly in such a state.”

For a moment, I was utterly nonplussed. But we Woosters are quick to rally when the need arises. “Oh no?” I said, puffing out my chest and fortifying the old spinal column. “ _Watch_ me!”

I shoved forward, but Jeeves remained the good old immovable obj., with the result that we stood more or less beak-to-beak for a goodish period, breathing stertorously. I was strongly reminded of the scene in which the Alexei, the brash but beautiful youth with the appalling flaxen mustache, attempted to confiscate Sergei’s secret love letter to the countess. I wondered for a moment if Jeeves would tear off his coat and trousers and shove me to the floor in an angry passion, as Sergei had done to Alexei.

I felt a blush creep from beneath my collar and make its way to the roots of my hair, no doubt infusing the flawless alabaster of my brow with the caliginous claret hue of a beet wrung from the rimy earth of Kaluga Oblast.

“Blast you and your story, Jeeves!” I spluttered. “And damn all root vegetables!” 

I shouldered him aside and made good my escape.


	8. Chapter 8

The offices of J. Q. Abernathy & Son, Printers, were located on the third storey of a modest red brick hovel on Fleet Street. I had arrived at the Abernathy GHQ after making the drive to London in record time. I now stood outside the office door, wheezing and mopping the sodden brow after a rapid flight up what seemed an interminable staircase. After a great deal of persistent banging on my part, the door was opened to me by a crustacean-faced old blighter whom I took to be the J. Q. Abernathy half of the sketch.

Well, to say that the door was opened to me is perhaps stretching the point a bit. The old bird cracked the thing open about two and a half inches—enough to give me an eyeful of whiskerage that would have put Stiffy’s Aberdeen terrier, Bartholomew, to shame. Upon further consideration, he narrowed the gap by about an inch. One bulging blue eye peered at me through the opening, taking in the entire Wooster form, from beetle-encrusted topknot to sod-covered soles.

“If you are looking for the public house, sir, it is downstairs,” said the ancient relic, and he started to shut the door.

“I am not looking for the public house,” I said with cold hauteur, pushing the door back open an inch or three. “I happen to be here on urgent business from a client of yours, Mrs. Dahlia Travers. I’m her nephew, Bertie Wooster. I’ve just driven down from her country estate in Worcestershire.” 

The bulging eye narrowed a bit. “Oh? And what does Mrs. Travers want?”

“There’s an item in the latest issue of _Milady’s Boudoir_ that must be retracted before the thing goes to press. It’s a matter of dire emergency, as a matter of fact, so if you’d be so kind as to let me in—”

“You’re too late,” puffed the old blighter, flexing his mustache triumphantly. “It’s already all set up on the Linotype machine.”

“Well, unset it, for pity’s sake!” I cried. I paused, for I had been struck by a sudden and horrific revelation. “Then . . . you’ve read it?” I asked, in hushed tones.

“Of course I’ve read it. I make all the slugs myself, sir, and set up the plates. You cannot print a magazine without reading the damn thing.”

I gulped. “Then surely you understand how bally urgent the matter is.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You must know the story of which I speak.”

He twiddled the soup-strainer contemplatively. “I imagine you must be referring to the one with the nude Russian fellows and the girl with the clam,” he said. “Well, I must say, it’s a fair sight more interesting than most of the rubbish she prints.”

I groaned and clutched the fevered brow. “But, blast it!” I wailed. “The thing’s a bally nightmare! The _Boudoir’s_ reputation will be blown to smithereens if it sees the light of day!”

“Is that so?” said the mustache, opening the door a portion of a smidge. I seized upon the opportunity to insert my foot into the aperture. “It’s not my job to judge these things on their literary merits, now, is it? I merely print them. Anyway, it seems to me that if Mrs. Travers is so concerned about preserving the _Boudoir’s_ reputation, she might start by paying her bills. And if it’s so urgent, why didn’t she call me herself?”

“Tcha! Don’t blither, my good man. She didn’t call you because—because—” I trickled off and scratched the lemon thoughtfully, dislodging a dried leaf. “Well, now that you put it that way, I suppose that would have saved considerable time and effort on my part.”

“Ha!” he replied, as if that settled the whole matter. He then slammed the door shut—or rather, tried to slam the door shut—and I let out a piercing howl and spun away, clutching my throbbing foot.

By the time my eyes had quit watering and the world had ceased to spin, the door was closed, and the old son-of-a-bachelor had vanished from view. “Mr. Abernathy!” I bellowed, placing my lips close to the woodwork.

The cove yanked the door open again and thrust his head out. “For heaven’s sake, will you stop making such a row? Go away, young man, before I ring the police!”

“Just one more moment of your time, if you please, and then you can ring the devil himself. Just how much,” I asked, withdrawing my chequebook from my jacket pocket with a flourish, “does my aunt owe you?” 

\---

I left the offices of J. Q. Abernathy & Son with both heart and bank account considerably lightened. The only thing that still weighed upon me was the papery albatross that lay nestled within a yellow envelope in my weak and clammy clutches. I had succeeded in averting disaster, for now. But the question of what to do with Jeeves’s accursed manuscript still remained. I resolved to give it some pretty serious thought, but not until I had put myself around the outside of a restorative cocktail in the peace and quiet of my own home.

So lost in contemplation was I, as I made my way back to the old two-seater, that when someone rapped me smartly on the shoulder—accompanied by a familiar feminine voice intoning, “Why, is that Bertie Wooster?”—I leaped like an adagio dancer, and the envelope slipped from my nerveless fingers. 

Turning to confront my accoster, I found myself face-to-face with Lady Florence Craye.

\---

“Oh,” I said faintly. “What ho, Florence.” And if I trembled a bit as I said it, what of it? Lesser men than Bertram Wooster have been known to tremble at the sight of Florence Craye. Of all my former fianceés, she is the one most calculated to strike dread into the Wooster bosom, not least because of her uncanny resemblance to a younger Aunt Agatha. Not so much in the looks department, I mean, but in her general propensity to floss her teeth with barbed wire and make a fellow feel like the toad beneath the harrow with a single withering glance. 

In addition to being an accomplished aunt-in-training, this Florence also happens to be a literary nib of some repute, which explains why she was prowling the printer’s district on Fleet Street. Still, in my highly nervous state, the whole thing came as something of a rude shock. Following so hard on the heels of all the other rude shocks I’d received over the past couple of days, this one left me feeling a trifle green about the gills, not to mention gelatinous around the spinal column. 

“Bertie!” cried Florence, giving me the sort of once-over that was becoming a recurring theme of the day. “What on earth have you been doing to yourself? You look as though you’ve been wrestling bears.”

“Ah,” I replied, with a strangled laugh. “I’ve just come from visiting my Aunt Dahlia. Life in the country, don’t you know.”

She gave me a sympathetic click of the tongue and a melting look. I didn’t like it. From Florence, I much preferred the steely gaze and the delicately curled upper lip. “Well, whatever are you doing _here_?” she asked. 

“Just errands, you know, and so forth. This and that.”

Florence’s gaze moved to the envelope, which still lay on the ground at my feet. I quickly shoved it behind me with my heel. A mere palliative measure, of course, but it made me feel better for about an eighth of a second. “What’s that?” she demanded. “Why, Bertie! Have you been writing?”

“Oh, rather. Er, no! I mean, what? I say, how’s Stilton?” 

Her eyes flashed, and her nostrils flared dangerously. “How should I know?” she asked, turning up her rather corking nose. 

I was conscious of a creeping dread. Any time relations grew cool between Florence and Stilton, it boded ill for Bertram, and not just because Florence tended to train her sights on self. I swallowed a few times and cast about nervously, half expecting the blighted Cheesewright to pop up out of a trap in a jealous frenzy and threaten to break my spine in fifteen places. 

“No particular reason,” I said, attempting to wave an airy hand and somehow managing to clock myself on the mazzard instead. “I just thought you might.”

“I haven’t spoken to that loathsome invertebrate in a week.”

“Quite.”

“Don’t speak to me about D’Arcy Cheesewright, Bertie. Do you know what that creeping amoeba had the nerve to tell me?”

“No. What?”

“He said my new play is obscene, and that no respectable woman ought to be writing such trash. Can you fathom the gall? I broke off our engagement immediately, of course.” She withdrew a brown paper parcel from under her arm and displayed it proudly. “I just had some reading copies printed up. It’s a modern retelling of _Lysistrata_.”

“Sounds delightful,” I said, stooping to pick up my own parcel and making a furtive sidle in the direction of the waiting two-seater.

“It’s not meant to be _delightful_ ,” sniffed La Craye, matching my furtive sidle with a confident stride in the same direction. “It’s meant to be _provocative_ —something that a boorish philistine like Cheesewright will never understand. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother to try.”

“Oh, rather.”

“I’ll be doing a reading of it tomorrow at Totleigh Towers. You really should come, Bertie. Madeline will be there, of course—I know you’re great friends with her—and her cousin Stephanie. Oh! And Honoria Glossop. Do you know her? I can’t imagine a better Stratyllis. Too bad she has no interest in the stage.” She laid a distressingly tender hand on my cuff. “Do come, Bertie. We could even give you a few lines. You can be one of the layabouts.” 

The world seemed to flicker, and I felt a cold sweat bedew the brow. I swayed a bit. I hadn’t had any plans of going near Totleigh Towers with a 500-mile barge pole, of course, but I still had the strangest sense that there but for the grace of God went I. “Thanks awfully,” I said weakly, “but I’m afraid it’s out of the question, old girl. I’ve got a terribly important . . . thing.”

“Well, the invitation is open, if you change your mind. Is that your car? Good. You can drive me to the Savoy. I’m lunching there with yet another potential publisher. Can you believe Faber and Faber rejected it? There are far too many Cheesewrights in this world, Bertie. Nobody understands art.” 

I mumbled a vaguely sympathetic reply, and bunged her in. 

\---

About fifteen minutes later, after depositing Florence and her parcel at the Savoy, I popped into the nearest post office and got off a telegram to Aunt Dahlia: 

_Disaster narrowly averted. Have returned to London for the nonce. Can no longer bear the frantic rush of country life. Bertie._

Having got the missive safely on its way, I crawled up to my flat and wrapped myself around the outside of an exhausted snifter of brandy and about five Haddock’s Headache Hokies. Then the bracing bath, and it was off to dreamland for Bertram.

It was not until the next morning, when I was awakened by the persistent tootling of the telephone, that it occurred to me to wonder where the dickens I had left the envelope containing Jeeves’s infernal manuscript.


	9. Chapter 9

At the sound of the telephone, I exited my bed as though someone had touched off a stick of dynamite under my pillow. Once my heart stopped trying to jackhammer its way out of my ribcage, I became aware that the ringing had stopped. A gentle murmuring without further informed me that either a burglar had broken into the flat and was answering my calls, or Jeeves had returned home at some point during the night and resumed his regular duties.

I opened the door and cautiously poked out the onion. Jeeves was standing at the end of the hall, holding the telephone receiver and looking about as much like a stuffed frog as I had ever seen him look.

“Good morning, sir,” he said. “Miss Stephanie Byng is on the line.”

I blinked a few times. “Stiffy?” I croaked. “What on Earth’s she want?”

“It is difficult to say, sir.”

He proffered the instrument, and I took it from him with much the same feeling of creeping dread that I imagine Napoleon must have felt when he first spotted the Prussians nosing about Plancenoit. I lifted the horn to my ear with a trembling mitt. “Hullo?” I said.

A peal of silvery laughter floated over the wire, topped off by a series of decidedly unladylike snorts. There was a moment of silence—just the little fiend catching her breath, I suppose—and then the performance was repeated. After that came the clatter of a distant receiver being bunged back onto the hook, and the soft hum of a disconnected line.

I hung up the phone and turned back to Jeeves. “That was Stiffy,” I said.

“So I gathered, sir.”

“Is it too early for a whiskey and soda, Jeeves?”

“Somewhat, sir.”

“Tea then, Jeeves, as strong as you can brew it.”

“Yes, sir. Did you ascertain the nature of the young lady’s communication?”

I shivered. “No, but I have a sneaking suspicion.”

“Very good, sir.” He turned and started to biff off.

“Er, Jeeves,” I called out meekly, “wait.”

“Sir?”

I spoke gently, for the subject I broached was a delicate one. “About your story, Jeeves.”

“Yes, sir?” The chap’s manner was mild, but there was a hint of _je ne sais_ something-or-other in his tone that could not escape my keen powers of perception.

“I went and got it back from the printer’s yesterday.”

The stuffed frog mask remained intact, but I detected the slightest twitch about his right nostril. “I had surmised as much, sir.”

“I know you’re disappointed, Jeeves. I wish there had been another way.”

“We must each act according to the dictates of our conscience, sir.”

“I know I was rather hard on you.”

“I have already put the matter from my mind, sir,” he said, gazing at a point somewhere in the middle distance.

I plucked an anxious pyjama sleeve. “I’m glad to see you’re taking it in such philosophical vein. After yesterday, I wondered if . . . but never mind. I am wandering from the subject at hand. What I’m getting at is—I, er, don’t suppose you’ve seen it, have you?”

“Sir?”

“The story, Jeeves. It was in a sort of yellowish envelope. Have you seen such a thing lying about, perchance?”

Jeeves raised both of his eyebrows and took a full step back. I couldn’t recall seeing him so rattled since the first time my chum Boko Fittleworth came to dinner in an oversized turtleneck sweater and flannel bags with patches on the knees. “You _lost_ it, sir?” he said.

I winced. “I wouldn’t say ‘lost,’ exactly. ‘Misplaced’ may be more the _mot juste_.”

“Do you recall where you saw the item last, sir?”

“Yes,” I said. “Beside me in the Sunbeam, under a frightfully fashionable tooled leather handbag and a parcel containing several reading copies of a new stage play by Florence Craye.”

The phone rang a second time, causing Jeeves to actually flinch and self to upset a small ornamental table.

“Jeeves,” I said, as we both stared at the appliance, “what was it that your pal Marcus Aurelius used to say about circs such as these?”

“Perhaps you refer to the passage from his _Meditations_ : ‘Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the Destiny of the universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.’”

“Ah, yes. That’s the one. I still maintain that he was an ass.”

“There may be something in what you say, sir,” he said, reaching for the phone. “Mr. Wooster’s residence,” he intoned a moment later. “Good morning, Miss Bassett. Yes, Miss Bassett. One moment, please, Miss Bassett.” He handed me the phone. “Miss Madeline Bassett,” he announced.

I groaned quietly and shoved the receiver up against the aural organ. “What ho, Madeline,” I said sadly.

There followed a silence so lengthy that I thought for a moment that the operator had mercifully severed the line. And then a faint and ghostly voice whispered, “Oh, Bertie.”

“Hullo.”

“Oh, _Bertie_!”

“Yes?”

“Oh, Bertie.”

“Still here, old girl.”

I was starting to wonder how long we could keep our crosstalk act going when she abruptly introduced a new motif. “I knew the spark still burned within you, Bertie, but I didn’t realize before now how keenly you felt the loss of the love you might have known. Be _brave_ , my poor, sweet Bertie. We are coming.”

“What!”

“Goodbye, Bertie.”

“Madeline, wait!” I wailed. “What do you mean, ‘we’?” But she had already signed off. Numbly, I returned the receiver to its cradle. “Jeeves,” I said, without looking up from the instrument, “are my bags still packed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, don’t bother unpacking them. We are leaving.”

“Where do you propose to go, sir?”

“It doesn’t much matter, but the farthest geographical point on Earth from this flat should do nicely.”

“Sir?”

“There’s no time to go into the details, but suffice it to say that I have reason to believe that approximately five hundred and seventy-two of my former fiancées are converging on our current coordinates as we speak, baying for blood and waving your manuscript like a war banner.”

“In that case, sir, I would advise that we remain here.”

I gaped wordlessly at him and flapped a hand in the direction of the telephone.

“I appreciate your point, sir,” said Jeeves, “but it would be unwise to squander this opportunity.”

“Opportunity for what?” I cried. “For the young master to be eaten alive by a veritable army of the most frightful specimens of womanhood that England has to offer?”

“No, sir. To retrieve the manuscript.” 

A strange calm descended upon me. “I see, Jeeves,” I said quietly. “I do not claim to understand, but I see. This is how it is going to be then, is it? Very well. But if things continue in this vein for much longer, I am afraid that we are going to have to have a serious talk about your future with the firm.” And without awaiting his reply, I turned and strode from the room with all the dignity that I could muster. 

\--- 

I paced the rug in my bedroom with a heavy tread, puffing away at a disquieted gasper. The more I considered Jeeves’s behaviour over the past forty-eight-ish hours, the less I could make head or tail of it. Just the previous morning, he had been so keen on broadcasting his tale of terrors to the world that he had resorted to the worst sort of chicanery, not to mention legerdemain and jiggery-pokery, to snake it off directly under my trusting aunt’s nose and into the hands of the printer. And now here he was, so determined to retract the thing from the public eye that he was willing to offer an ostensibly esteemed employer up on the altar of a grisly cadre of would-be paramours, plus Stiffy Byng. 

I could only console myself with one faint vestige of hope—viz., that Jeeves was up to something. I could not rule out the possibility that the blighter would pull some particularly fruity wheeze out of his hat at zero hour and save the day, but I could scarcely conceive of what that might be. It seemed to me that he had been going out of his way to rake Bertram over the coals and sow the seeds of madness and discord at every turn up ‘til the present moment, and I could hardly see the trend reversing itself now. My faith in the man was profoundly shaken. 

In any case, there was nothing for it now but to hitch up the old socks and bung myself, like the six hundred, into the jaws of Death. Reminding myself that mine was not to reason why, I donned the neatly pressed outer casings and prepared to face my doom.


	10. Chapter 10

Doom blew in just in time for the luncheon hour. I had dolefully instructed Jeeves to prepare a small mountain of finger sandwiches and several gallons of lemon squash in anticipation of just such a contingency. He was setting out the repast when the doorbell gave an ominous tinkle.

Jeeves streamed silently to the door while I stood in the middle of the sitting room, shifting from one foot to another and sweating about twenty gallons from the palm of each hand. I became conscious of a cacophony of feminine voices, which fell silent the moment Jeeves opened the door.

“Good afternoon, Lady Florence, Miss Glossop, Miss Bassett, Miss Byng,” said Jeeves.

I sway’d like those long mosses in a stream. The whole blasted lot of them had come.

“Is your master in, Jeeves?” demanded Florence. “We need to speak to him about a matter of some urgency.”

“Yes, your ladyship,” said Jeeves. “He is in the sitting room.”

I briefly considered diving behind the chesterfield, or—better yet—leaping out the nearest window. Before I could act on either of these splendid notions, the troops made landfall, and I found myself confronted with a surging sea of former fiancées. I cast about desperately for Jeeves, but he had already evaporated.

“Ah,” I said as they filed in. “What ho! What ho, what ho! Good heavens. To what do I owe the—er, yes.” I waved vaguely in the direction of the tea table. “Sandwiches,” I remarked.

A dashed awkward silence ensued. Florence and Honoria exchanged a meaning glance. Madeline chewed her bottom lip and gazed blushingly up at me from beneath fan-like lashes. Stiffy took up the rear, looking like a petite and winsome Nero preparing to observe the lions tucking into a particularly tender Christian.

It was Florence who finally broke the deafening quietude.

“Bertie,” she said, stepping forward and giving my arm a gentle clutch, “you’re very kind, but we don’t mean to stay long.”

“Oh. What a pity.”

She proffered a wilted yellow envelope. “We came to return this.” 

“Oh,” I replied. “Ah.”

“Somehow it found its way into my effects.”

“I’d wondered where the little fellow got off to.”

“Yes.”

“Rather.” I attempted to strike a casual pose, and nearly toppled sideways. “I don’t suppose you read any of it, then,” I said weakly.

There was a second round of meaning glances. Madeline took on a decidedly vermillion hue. Stiffy made a sort of water buffalo noise, but somehow managed to regain her composure.

“We didn’t mean to, Bertie,” said Honoria earnestly. “But it was tucked in with Florence’s play, and—”

“I just want you to know I’m very glad, Bertie,” Florence interjected. “I think it’s wonderful that you are trying your hand at . . . literature.”

“Ah,” I said faintly.

“And, my goodness, you’ve been reading the great Russians, haven’t you? I am pleasantly surprised, Bertie. I didn’t think you had it in you. I’m so very touched to think that our association, however brief, might have led you to such an intellectual blossoming. But, Bertie, how can we put this? This story you’ve written . . .” She paused, eyeing me with a sort of motherly concern. “You—you did write this, didn’t you, Bertie?”

I gawped at her silently, unable to will the speaking apparatus into action. I could not simply disavow any connection to the thing—the situation had progressed far beyond that particular point of no return. I could tell them I hadn’t written it, but then what? Such a course would only open up avenues for further inquiry, and I didn’t jolly well like where such avenues would inevitably lead. As much of a bounder as he had been of late, I could not see my way to pinning the whole affair on Jeeves. A Wooster may be many things, but a squealer is not one of them.

“Yes,” I said at length. “Absolutely. Every word.” 

I’m not sure what sort of reaction I expected this declaration to receive, but I had not budgeted for Madeline Bassett bursting into hysterical sobs. “Oh, Buh-Buh-Bertie!” she wailed.

The world sort of flickered. A tête-à-tête with Madeline Bassett under the best of conditions requires a certain amount of fortitude. Facing off against a blubbering Madeline Bassett, flanked by an army of Stiffies, Florences, and Honorias, is quite another matter. “There, there,” I said, backing up so hastily that I nearly took a purler over the Morris chair, “now, now, and all that sort of thing.”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Madeline,” said Honoria, yanking a handkerchief out of the pocket of her tweed jacket and shoving it in the general direction of the heaving girl, “it wasn’t _that_ bad!”

“Well . . . but there’s no use making such a spectacle of yourself over it,” said Florence. She leaned in closer to Madeline and added in a sharp sotto voce, “Look, you’re upsetting him!”

It occurred to me that I’d never known Florence Craye to worry about upsetting anybody before, but I decided not to press the issue. “Now, now,” I reiterated instead. After a brief nasal fanfare, Madeline subsided.

“What I was trying to say,” Florence continued loudly, “is that this story you’ve written, while quite, er, compelling, in its way—” 

“—is awful,” said Honoria, her eyes shining with a strange light. “Simply, unutterably dreadful. You weren’t planning on publishing this, were you?”

“Er, well,” I said, giving the cravat a despairing tug, “I’d rather thought . . . I mean . . . well, gosh, I don’t know. Do you think I oughtn’t?”

Honoria stared at me for a moment, then let out a laugh that sounded like the Flying Scotsman going through the Sharpthorne Tunnel in a particularly marked manner. “Oh, Bertie,” she said, stepping forward to give me a cuff on the arm that made my head spin, “you are too funny!”

“I think it’s lovely,” piped up Madeline, with a vehemence of which I would not have thought her capable. She gave the handkerchief another honk. “Lovely and passionate and oh, so very sad. When we came to the part where Sergei had his one, fleeting taste of the countess’s affections, treasuring it as he did despite knowing that their love was star-crossed, I nearly _died_.”

“Awfully sorry.”

“Don’t be, Bertie,” she said tenderly, dabbing at her pink-rimmed eyes. “I know it was merely the cry of a tortured heart. I should have flown to your side long before now.”

“Wait one moment. What on Earth,” said Florence, fixing Madeline with a gimlet eye, “are you talking about?”

Stiffy, who had been silently observing the proceedings while wolfing down finger sandwiches with fiendish delight, broke into a little dance. “I know, I know!” she said, clapping her hands in girlish enthusiasm.

“I suppose it’s no use hiding it from the world any longer, is it, Bertie?” sighed Madeline. I could only whiffle incoherently in reply, so she plunged on. “We’ve kept this tender little secret between us for so long, but it’s better, I think, to let it out—gently, as if it were an injured dove that’s been tucked away in a dim little cage for far too long. You see,” she continued, turning to Florence, “poor, dear Bertie has been terribly in love with me ever since we first met at Cannes a few years ago. It broke my heart, having to turn him down when he finally made his first, shy overtures to me some time later. I wanted so badly to make him happy, but I had already pledged my heart and soul to Augustus.”

“I see,” said Florence, staring at Madeline as if a handful of surplus eyeballs had sprouted from the end of her beazer. “Well, I’m not quite sure how to put this, dear, but you hardly seem like Bertie’s type.”

I was blowed. I hadn’t realized Florence was so dashed perspicacious. Of course, it wouldn’t have been _preux_ to say so, so I let it pass.

“Oh, but you’re wrong!” said Madeline ardently. “His heart aches for me, it has since the moment he laid eyes on me! He told me so himself, the day I was forced to turn him down.”

“Did he? And when was this?”

“About two and a half years ago.” She sighed, the saucer-like orbs beginning to look dangerously dewy again. “I remember as if it were yesterday. The fragrant garden, the moonlit path . . .”

“Ah,” said Florence, a look of understanding mingled with pity cresting the unblemished brow. “I see, now. It all becomes clear. That was not so long after Bertie and I severed our own engagement and parted ways over some little misunderstanding. It all seems rather petty and unnecessary, now. In any case, no doubt he was in wild mood, having just lost the only woman he had ever loved. I imagine he flung himself at the first likely prospect in a vain effort to fill the void in his heart, as young men so often do in these situations.”

“But—” squeaked Madeline.

“No, it could not be more obvious,” said Florence, deaf to La Bassett’s protestations. “Bertie wrote this story and slipped it in amongst my things in a clumsy but charming bid to win my attention, and to show me how much he’s changed.” She smiled meltingly at me, and it occurred to me that I did, in fact, seem to be melting. Jeeves would need an industrial pump to get the perspiration out of the flat by the time whole the ordeal was over. 

My ruminations were interrupted by a reprise of the Flying Scotsman noises. “Well, I’ll be damned!” said Honoria. “They both think this is about them! Didn’t either of you read the description of the countess?”

“Yes,” said Madeline dreamily. “‘Golden-haired, with eyes as azure and clear and shifting as the waters of Lake Baikal . . .”

“‘Proud and cold and lofty, yet burning with a barely restrained passion that was every bit as formidable as her intellect,’” Florence interjected smugly.

“‘Broad of croup, with sleek haunches and powerful legs, her withers as high and dappled as those of the Orlov Trotter she rode majestically into the hunt,’” said Honoria, as if that settled it. “Honestly, if either of you even knows what an Orlov Trotter is, I’ll eat my riding crop. Anyway, Bertie’s been trying to win me back ever since Father forbade him from marrying me after that silly lunch they had together. I must say, though,” she continued, with an impish grin that sent chills down the spinal column, “I don’t think your latest methods are any too likely to change his mind. You funny thing!”

Florence had the air of a woman whose thunder had been definitively heisted, and who furthermore was not about to take it lying down. “Ridiculous!” she said testily. “I’ve known Bertie longer than any of you, and his intentions couldn’t be plainer. I never should have broken our engagement in the first place, I see that now. I simply failed to realize his full potential. All he needs is a little guidance and refinement.”

“No!” cried Madeline. “Can’t you see he’s in agony? He needs nurturing and tending, like a tender and broken flower. He needs the gentle sympathy of the woman he loves.” 

“What he needs,” Honoria chimed in, “is someone strong and sensible to keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t go off and do something loony given the first opportunity. Poor little funny lamb! Of course I’ll marry you, Bertie. I’m sure Father can be made to see reason.”

At this point, negotiations abruptly broke down. I have never actually had the experience of being a Tiffany lamp at Sotheby’s, for obvious reasons, but I felt I was beginning to get a reasonably accurate idea of what it would be like.

During the unfolding of this grisly tableau, I had been slowly receding in the direction of the mantel, and I now bobbed up against it with a thud. My original plan of flinging myself out the window was beginning to look increasingly attractive, except that Stiffy Byng was between me and it. She had abandoned the finger sandwiches and was now standing by with her hands clasped beneath her chin and her eyes sparkling, bouncing up and down on her toes like a particularly bloodthirsty ring-side spectator at Madison Square Garden. 

Jeeves, meanwhile, continued to show neither hide nor hair of himself. I decided that the time had come to rout the blighter out. 

“Tea, anyone?” I shrieked, doing a frantic tarantella in the direction of the kitchen. 

But as I was making my way thither, Stiffy detached herself from the rest of the rabble, who were still loudly threshing out my fate in the center of the sitting room. “One moment, Bertie,” she called out. “I have a question for you.”

Foolishly, I did not pretend to suffer an acute attack of hearing loss, but instead paused to humour the human gumboil. “Eh? What’s that?” I asked, freezing about a foot and a half from the beckoning sanctuary of the kitchen.

“Does your Aunt Agatha know about your little literary pastime?”

I drew myself up to the extent that I was able—no easy feat when one’s knees are knocking together like a pair of castanets. “She does not,” I said sternly, “nor will she, if I have anything to say about it.”

“How interesting,” she said, tapping her chin with a well-manicured finger and gazing at me with a grave and thoughtful expression on her map. “I merely wondered. Uncle Watkyn is being terribly difficult again about Harold and me, and I may need your help soon.”

I goggled like a betrayed halibut. “You wouldn’t!” I gasped.

“You know I would,” she said cheerfully.

I found myself at a loss. As I gaped at her dumbly, our mutual attention was drawn irresistibly back to the arbitration proceedings underway in the vicinity of the tea table. Madeline had just asserted that I was the sort of chap who would go in for a spring wedding in a country church, all wreathed round with roses and fragrant lilies. Honoria riposted with an impassioned argument for a brief and sensible hobnob with a JP at the nearest register office, while Florence insisted that St. Margaret’s was absolutely the stuff to give the troops.

The world had flickered before, but now it did a sort of somersault and started to go black around the edges. I sagged against a passing wall. Up until this point, I was forced to admit, my life had been more or less a charmed one. As often as the icy hand of fate had come within a toucher of closing round my neck, something—or someone—had always swooped in and pulled me from the brink at the eleventh hour. I remember once telling a pal of mine that I had faith in my star. At the present moment, however, it appeared that my star had thrown up its hands and stormed off to its dressing room, refusing to work under these conditions.

The flame of hope guttered in the Wooster bosom. I was faintly aware of an odd crunching noise issuing from a nearby room, but I merely assumed that it was the sound of the last vestiges of my once boundless _joie de vivre_ being ground into dust beneath life’s boot heel.

At that moment, Jeeves abruptly blew in like a spring zephyr. He did not emerge from the kitchen, as I had expected, but from my bedroom. An object lay cradled in his arms, bundled in a blanket like an infant. He announced himself with a cough that was slightly louder than his usual effort, rather like an elderly sheep who had recently inhaled a sizeable chunk of sod.

“I beg your pardon, ladies, Mr. Wooster,” he said. The sitting room contingent fell silent and pivoted to glare at him in graceful synchronicity. He continued, unfazed. “I am sorry to intrude, but I could not help but overhear a certain amount of your earlier conversation as I was going about my duties. I fear there has been a misunderstanding, and I cannot in good conscience allow it to continue unrectified.”


	11. Chapter 11

Normally, had Jeeves manifested himself in this manner at what promised to be the zenith of my darkest hour, I would have flung myself at his feet and wept with gratitude. Recent events had severely rattled my faith in the man, however. To be sure, all signs pointed to this Jeeves being a bearer of joy and good tidings. But what good were signs at a time like this? As far as I was concerned, the universe had ceased to follow any laws of Nature or Reason the moment I clapped eyes on that blighted manuscript.

“What are you talking about?” snapped Honoria. “What do you mean, barging in like this? Can’t you see we are conversing with Mr. Wooster?”

“I do apologize, Miss Glossop, but I what I have to say is of considerable importance. It concerns the authorship of the literary composition.” He nodded in the direction of the envelope, which I still clutched to my chest in clammy mitts. It occurred to me that “literary composition” was a fairly generous description of the contents of said envelope, but one keeps these things to oneself. 

La Craye tcha’d at him dismissively. “Whatever game you think you’re playing at, you needn’t bother,” she said. “We already know Bertie wrote it. He told us so himself.” 

“No, your ladyship,” said Jeeves, shaking his head gravely. “You have been led astray. Mr. Wooster did not write it. I did.”

The breath left my lungs in a whoosh, and a wave of blessed relief crashed over me. I briefly revisited the notion of flinging myself at Jeeves’s feet and weeping with gratitude, but wiser counsels prevailed.

“You!” cried Honoria.

“You?” quavered Madeline.

“You?” gargled Stiffy.

“I find that very hard to believe!” said Florence, abruptly breaking with tradition. “What possible reason could _you_ have had to write something like this?”

To my amazement, Jeeves hung his head. It had never occurred to me that his neck was capable of bending in that direction. “I am ashamed to say, your ladyship,” he said meekly.

“Oh, out with it,” said Honoria, and I could have sworn I detected the merest sliver of kindly solicitude in her tone.

“Very well, miss,” said Jeeves. “It was because of this.” And, with the air of a man whom melancholy had marked for her own, he slowly drew back the blanket that had been covering the object that lay nestled at his bosom.

There rested the mangled remains of the concertina that I had bought for little Geraldine. 

Had I been wearing boots, my heart would have dropped into them. “Hoy!” I said, but nobody paid me any heed. They were too busy squinting uncomprehendingly at the wreckage.

“But, what is it?” asked Madeline.

“More to the point, what does it have to do with Bertie’s story?” said Honoria.

“ _My_ story, miss,” Jeeves corrected gently. “It is a concertina. I purchased it a few weeks ago as a birthday present for my little grand-niece, Geraldine.”

“Hoy!” I said again, without much more conviction than my first effort. My feeble protestations continued to fall on deaf ears.

“I am very fond of Geraldine,” Jeeves went on. “A dear child. On one of my days off some weeks ago, I was strolling with her in Regent Street when we chanced to pass by the headquarters of Boosey and Hawkes. She caught sight of a small concertina in the window and rushed over to look more closely at the instrument, her little eyes sparkling. ‘Oh, Uncle Reggie,’ she cried, plucking at my sleeve with her tiny, dimpled hand, ‘oh, how I wish, I wish upon the brightest star, that I could have one for my very own!’”

Madeline uttered a small squeak. The rest of his audience simply stared, enrapt. I could not help but feel a smidge of admiration. He was putting in an incredible performance. I was too dumbfounded by the audacity of the whole thing to even feel particularly pipped.

“Of course, such an instrument was far beyond my humble means,” he said, “but how could I resist the dear child, and so soon before her fifth birthday? I scrimped and saved my pay for the next few weeks, until at last I was able to procure it for her. It would all be worth it, I knew, for the look of pure, childish joy upon her little face when she tore open the shiny paper and saw what lay within. But then—” and the blighter’s chin actually trembled “—as I was packing my effects for a recent trip to Mrs. Travers’s estate in Worcestershire, I carelessly set a heavy valise down upon the instrument, crushing it beyond repair.”

This elicited a collective gasp from the assembled masses. Even Stiffy tut-tutted sympathetically.

“Poor fellow!” said Honoria, with considerable warmth. “And poor little Geraldine. But I still don’t understand where the story fits in.”

I confess that I found myself equally fogged. I simply could not fathom where all this was going.

“That is susceptible of a ready explanation, miss,” said Jeeves, inclining the pumpkin once more. “I did not dare impose upon Mr. Wooster’s kindness by asking him for the money to pay for a replacement. I turned to the papers in search of some little job that I might do in order to earn sufficient funds to purchase a new instrument. Geraldine’s birthday was fast approaching, and I could not bear the thought of disappointing the child. As it happens, I came across an advertisement from the publisher of a reputable women’s weekly publication, offering a generous advance to any author who could produce a story designed to—if you will pardon me—titillate the feminine psyche. Despairing of any other option on such short notice, I hastily composed the florid tale that is currently in Mr. Wooster’s possession.”

“Good lord!” said Florence. “But, how on Earth did Bertie end up with it? And why on Earth did he claim to have written it?”

Jeeves shuffled his feet and stared at the carpet. “I am loath to hazard a guess, your ladyship. I am sure Mr. Wooster must have had his reasons. I can only say that I had left the manuscript on the kitchen table yesterday morning, in preparation for sending it to the publisher the next day. But, having arisen, I found it gone. What transpired next, I can only postulate, but I gather that it somehow made it from Mr. Wooster’s possession to your own.”

Florence rounded on me, visibly piqued. “You stole your own valet’s writing?” she demanded.

“Ah, well . . .” I said. All eyes were suddenly upon me. I attempted to sink further into the protective embrace of the wall.

“I caught him slinking around with it on Fleet Street,” said Florence, addressing the room at large. “He must have been nosing around publishers’ offices, trying to pass it off as his own work!”

“Here now, I say,” I offered lamely.

“Oh, Bertie! How could you be so _cruel_?” This volley came from Madeline, who was starting to look alarmingly moist about the ocular regions once more. 

Stiffy let out a quiet whistle and gazed at me with undisguised admiration. “Golly, that’s low!” she said. 

“Well, Wooster?” said Honoria. “Is this true?”

“Is it? Do you deny it?” pressed Florence.

I cast an imploring glance at Jeeves, but he would not meet my eye. I turned back to the inquisitorial party with a helpless shrug. 

A determined sort of look settled on Honoria’s formidable visage. This, she seemed to have decided, was the time to take the current when it served, or lose her ventures. She marched up to me and wrenched the manuscript from my grasp. Having shot me a withering glare, she turned back to Jeeves.

“Here,” she said kindly, balancing the envelope atop the pitiful wreckage of the concertina. “This is yours. But for Heaven’s sake, lock it away somewhere. The world isn’t ready. How much did that instrument cost you?”

“Oh, really miss, you are too kind. I couldn’t possibly—” Jeeves began, but she was already brandishing a couple of crisp tenners at him.

“Nonsense. I insist!” She shoved the largesse into the front pocket of his jacket.

“Yes,” said Madeline, tripping forward and shoving in another slab of oof. “Please, you must accept this. It’s the least we could do for you and your sweet Geraldine, after everything you’ve been through.”

“I am overcome, miss.”

“Here, buy the child _two_ concertinas,” said Florence, sliding a few more notes into the kitty and giving Jeeves’s bulging pocket a pat. “And if you ever need writing advice, feel free drop me a line.” 

“You are the very soul of generosity, your ladyship.”

She turned on me with a piercing eye that would put any but the most seasoned aunt to shame. “I am deeply disappointed in you, Bertie,” she said. 

“Right ho.” 

“I really thought, for the briefest moment, that you were actually attempting to make something of yourself. I see now that I was wrong.” 

“Oh, rather.” 

“I should have known better.” 

“Absolutely.”

“I think we’re finished here,” she said coldly, summoning her entourage with a jerk of the platinum-coiffed nut. 

“We certainly are,” agreed Honoria. “I suppose Father was right after all. Only a certifiable loon would steal a story like that one. What a shame!” 

They both beetled off in the direction of the door. Madeline began to follow, but hesitated as she passed me, and drew close. “I know why you did it, Bertie,” she said softly, reaching out to press my hand, “but I’m afraid I could never give my heart and hand to a man who would use another so callously. Even if it was . . . for love.” 

“Oh, quite. Dashed sensible of you.” 

“I’m sorry, Bertie. Goodbye.” 

“Tinkerty tonk.” 

“Come, Stephanie,” she said, taking Stiffy’s arm. “We mustn’t linger. It’ll be far too painful for Bertie.” 

“Well, toodle pip, Bertie. Bye bye, Jeeves,” said Stiffy, giving us both a jaunty wave. “Thanks for a positively thrilling lunch. You boys certainly do know how to entertain!” 

Jeeves carefully set his burden down upon a convenient armchair and moved to open the door. As the rest of the party oiled out, Florence drew him aside. “Jeeves,” she said in a low voice, “I have one question for you before I go.” 

“Yes, your ladyship?” 

“Just who is this publisher of yours? I may happen to have a little something they’d find of interest.” 

“Why, I believe you know the person in question, your ladyship,” said Jeeves. “She is none other than Mrs. Dahlia Travers, the proprietress of _Milady’s Boudoir_.”


	12. Chapter 12

It took a few ticks for the full momentousness of what had just occurred to penetrate the addled loaf. Jeeves stood there staring silently at the recently closed door, and I stood staring silently at the back of his head. I have often contemplated the back of Jeeves’s head, of course, but never with quite the same level of emotion as that presently burgeoning behind the top waistcoat button.

“Jeeves!” I exclaimed, once speech at last returned to her throne.

“Yes, sir?” he said. He did not turn his attention from the door, however. It seemed to interest him strangely.

“Jeeves!” I said again, for I felt it bore repeating. “Good lord, Jeeves. I mean to say, good lord!”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you stand alone. What a _wheeze_ , Jeeves!”

He finally turned to face me. “Thank you, sir,” he said. However, it was not the mellifluous, gratified sort of “thank you, sir” that I was accustomed to hearing under such circumstances. It was a flat, dull “thank you, sir,” a “thank you, sir” that seemed to droop a bit around the edges and was distinctly lacking in what we might call oomph.

I plunged on, undaunted. “I should never have doubted you, old egg. Of all the brainy schemes you’ve pulled, this one finally and definitively nabs the macaroon. Laurence Olivier is no doubt weeping into his gin somewhere after that performance of yours. And putting Florence onto the _Milady’s Boudoir_ vacancy like that—a master-stroke, Jeeves! What I’m still trying to sort out is how you worked it all. Naturally, you must have called ahead to old Mr. Abernathy and told him not to turn over the story until I paid Aunt Dahlia’s tab. But how on Earth did you manage to arrange me bumping into La Craye like that?” 

“You give me too much credit, sir.”

“Faugh, Jeeves! What rot! You have just single-handedly saved _Milady’s Boudoir_ and sent three of my most formidable ex-fiancées off thinking that I am lower than a snake’s undercarriage and generally the scourge of the Earth!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Too much credit, my foot. I ought to be erecting a statue in your honour, or possibly parading in the streets. Your scheme was a trifle elaborate, I will admit. If I had one criticism, it would be that the whole gag has a touch of the Goldbergian about it. But these are mere quibbles. One is disappointed, of course, about the concertina. Still, as some wise old bird—possibly Aristotle—once said, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.” 

“I am sorry, sir. I shall, of course, reimburse you for the cost of the instrument.” He started to reach into his pocket and withdraw the sizable chunk of cabbage ensconced therein.

I waved him off. “I wouldn’t hear of it, Jeeves! I should have deferred to your wisdom in the matter from the start. The child is your niece, after all. Take your well-earned gravy and use it to purchase a handsome leather-bound edition of _The Little Child’s Book of Spinoza_ , or whatever sort of a present you deem suitable. All I ask is that you send it along with Uncle Bertram’s compliments.”

“Very good, sir,” he said, without a great deal of conviction. “Pardon me, sir.” He toddled off to the armchair where he had dumped the erstwhile concertina and the manuscript, and began gathering up the detritus.

I gaped after him, utterly fogged. I could not understand the man’s attitude. From where I was sitting, the thing had all the earmarks of a colossal triumph. But Jeeves—indiscernible though it might have been to a less observant cove than myself—had the look of a valet who had stubbed his toe on one too many of life’s coffee tables. 

“Jeeves,” I said, trotting up to him, “I don’t understand you.”

“Sir?”

“You appear less than convivial, old bean. You ought to be resting on your laurels and reveling in the fruits of your victory, and yet you brood. What gives, Jeeves? Why the hangdog routine? What, exactly, has rubbed the bloom off your buttercup in this frightful manner?” 

Something that could reasonably be described as an expression flashed across Jeeves’s face. His brows drew together, his dark lashes lowered, and there was a general downward trend in the southerly reaches of his clock. It was over as quickly as it began, but there was no mistaking what I’d seen. It was a look of contrition. 

“Mr. Wooster,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”

I was momentarily dumbstruck. Casting my thoughts back over the years of our acquaintance, I could not think of a single occasion on which that particular phrase had crossed Jeeves’s lips.

I no-noed at him, but he remained unmollified.

“Yes, sir. My behaviour has been unconscionable.”

“Oh, pshaw, Jeeves! All is forgiven. I see now that you were merely moving in mysterious ways your wonders to perform.”

“ _Please_ , sir.”

I felt a touch of the old pique returning. “All right, then,” I said, a smidge peevishly, “enough of this shilly-shallying. Out with it, man! What the devil’s eating you?”

“Very well, sir.” He drew a steadying breath. “I never planned for this scenario to play out as it did. It was only by the most fortuitous stroke of luck that Lady Florence happened to encounter you in Fleet Street. In fact, it was not until she and the other young ladies were actually on the premises that the subterfuge of the concertina suggested itself to me.”

“What!”

“Yes, sir. I must also confess that there was, in my original support of Mrs. Travers’s scheme, some element of defiance—as you yourself so astutely surmised. That is not to say that I did not believe the idea to be a fundamentally sound one. But when you entrusted the task of writing the story to me, and with such unmitigated confidence in my abilities, I was . . .”—he paused, and I could have sworn the man actually gulped—“I was deeply flattered, sir.”

The old cardiac organ sank like a stone. “Oh, Jeeves!” I cried, taking a step toward him.

He raised a placating hand, and I subsided. “Although I had never actually attempted to compose a work of romantic fiction before, I felt that to do so would be a relatively simple matter. After all, I consider myself a discerning reader of the genre. Having written the tale, I was convinced I had created something of merit. When you and Mrs. Travers informed me otherwise, I was at first resolute in my conviction. In a fit of obstinacy, I sent the manuscript off to the printer, determined that my efforts would be vindicated by public opinion. My confidence rapidly dwindled over the ensuing hours, but I remained obdurate. However, there can no longer be any room for doubt. I am no writer, sir. I regretfully concede that, in this particular instance, your confidence in me was misplaced.”

He did not wait for me to formulate a response to this remarkable monologue. Clutching the ruined concertina and the well-pawed yellow envelope to his breast, he swept off in the direction of his lair.


	13. Chapter 13

As I watched Jeeves’s retreating back, my heart throbbed with manly sympathy. I mean to say, it’s hard enough making a hash of something when you’re a notoriously web-footed bungler like myself. The old sting of failure may grow more familiar with time, but one never really gets used to it. I could only imagine the shock to the constitution of a chap like Jeeves, who was accustomed to pirouetting through life spreading sweetness and light and turning everything he touched to gold without a second thought.

“Jeeves, wait!” I called out, and I could not prevent a melting tone from edging into my voice.

He stopped, and turned to me with a weary gaze. “Yes, sir?”

“I’m so sorry. I really am, old thing.”

“You have no reason to apologize, sir.”

“But I do, Jeeves. I’ve been tactless and uncouth. I’d even go so far as to say un- _preux_. I've trampled all over your tender feelings—of which, I’ll admit, I wasn’t even aware you had any until quite recently. I thought your passions began and ended with the proper drape and pleating of a pair of dress trousers. It never occurred to me for a moment that an ardent and romantic heart pulsed beneath that ridiculously well-pressed waistcoat of yours.”

I paused for a moment to see how this was going over. Jeeves said nothing, but I fancied I noticed a faint pinkening about his ears. My own face was blazing like a fire engine, but I soldiered on.

“When I asked you to write that beastly story, I thought you’d turn out some tasteful but perfectly contrived slab of drivel,” I said. “I pictured something calculated and cunning and flawless. Instead, you tore out a raw chunk of your soul, whacked it onto a salver, and handed it to the world with watercress round it—and we turned up our noses at it! You opened the door of your heart to us, Jeeves, and instead of settling in on the sofa for a nice cup of tea, we went about the place scoffing at the antimacassars and curling our lips at the mantel ornaments.” 

“An intriguing metaphor, sir,” said Jeeves, who was eyeballing me in a most curious manner.

I almost remarked that he was the expert on intriguing metaphors, but decided against it on consideration. “Anyway,” I said, scuffing the carpet with the toe of my shoe, “what does a fathead like me know about high-brow literature? I probably wouldn’t recognize it if it biffed me between the eyes with a small but serviceable rubber cosh. Why, just the other day, someone—we need not linger on her identity—was telling me that the stuff was meant to provoke, not to delight. And if that’s true, then I’d say you’ve succeeded with knobs on. I’ve been provoked for days!” 

Jeeves looked pained. “I appreciate your kindness, sir,” he said, “but I would prefer to let the matter drop. If you will excuse me, I must go dispose of these items.” 

It took a moment for this to penetrate, but when it did, I was struck by a peculiar sensation of creeping dread. “Jeeves!” I said, aghast. “Don’t tell me you intend to destroy your manuscript?”

“I fear I will not rest easily until I have done so, sir.” 

“Jeeves, no!”

“I must, sir. This unfortunate episode has dragged on long enough. Let us forget the whole thing ever happened.” 

I uncorked an incredulous laugh. “Forget!” I cried. “You can’t possibly expect anyone who’s read that story of yours to simply _forget_ about it. You might as well ask a chap to forget having a firecracker touched off under the seat of his pants. I can't, and I won't, Jeeves! Nor will I stand idly by and watch you destroy the fruits of your labour. Hand it over, dash it!” And before I could stop myself, I’d made a grab for the envelope.

Positively barmy of me, I will be the first to admit. After all, the utter annihilation of Jeeves’s manuscript had been my life’s mission up until roughly 15 minutes prior to that moment. And yet, with the realization of this noble goal suddenly in sight, my brain slipped a cog. My wholly sensible yen for the document’s destruction abruptly subsided, and some perverse protective instinct burbled up in its place. After all we’d been through together, I simply couldn’t bear the thought of parting with the dratted thing.

It’s not often that Jeeves boggles, but he was doing so now. “Sir,” he demanded, deftly evading my desperate lunge, “what _are_ you doing?”

“Stopping you from doing something rash. You will thank me later.”

He parried another of my advances, and dropped the mangled concertina in the process. “Desist, sir!” he cried.

I did not desist. Instead, I made another leap at the manuscript—which Jeeves was now holding aloft as he rapidly backed away from me—and tripped over the corpse of the concertina. This caused me to pitch forward, and in the course of so doing, I took Jeeves down with a front-on tackle that would have done Ted Sadler proud.

There followed a brief set-to. The whole thing happened so fast that the details are something of a blur. Suffice it to say that when the dust settled, I found myself pinned to the floor by both wrists, with Jeeves sitting astride me like a particularly dignified cowboy at a rodeo tie-down.

“This situation appears to have gotten rather out of hand, sir,” he remarked. 

“You have _tetigisti_ ’d the _rem_ with your customary _acu_ , Jeeves,” I panted.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, with a gesture of his head that seemed to indicate the general position in which we found ourselves. “It was a reflex.”

“Dashed impressive,” I said in what I hoped was a conciliatory tone, for he seemed in no great hurry to release his death-grip on my wrists. “Were you a prop forward at some early stage of your career? Or possibly an all-in wrestler?”

“No, sir. A batman.”

“Oh, yes. You may have mentioned this before.”

“Perhaps so, sir.” He finally unclamped the vicelike paws and sat back, but did not dismount. “I do apologize, sir. Are you all right?” 

“Oh, absolutely. Perfectly fine,” I replied. I was about to add that there were no hard feelings, but it wouldn’t have been entirely truthful. In fact, to my dismay, certain portions of my anatomy were beginning to feel positively petrified. I never would have guessed that it would be so thrilling to be sat upon by Jeeves, but here we were. I suppose many of the greatest discoveries are made by accident. I could suddenly appreciate how Sir Isaac Newton must have felt when he got beaned by that apple. As Jeeves loomed over me with his dark eyes glittering, his black hair tumbling over his forehead, and a flush creeping up from beneath his impeccable collar, I was once again reminded inescapably of—

“Sergei,” I murmured.

Jeeves was staring at me in an inscrutable manner. “What did you say, sir?” 

“Oh, nothing of importance.” I gave my hips a little shimmy, hoping to put some distance between Jeeves’s stalwart haunches and the alarmingly enthusiastic scepter of my avidity. This strategy, as it turned out, was unsound. The situation in my trousers grew markedly worse, and a small and undignified noise escaped my lips. Jeeves’s expression, meanwhile, became even more difficult to scrute.

“I say, Jeeves,” I squeaked, “you’re still on me.”

He shook himself slightly and blinked a few times, like a man emerging from a trance. “I am sorry, sir,” he said hastily, and began to retreat.

But my hands, moving as if of their own accord, came down upon his knees, and he grew still again. “That wasn’t a complaint, mind you,” I said in a husky voice. “Merely an observation.”

“I see, sir,” said Jeeves, and I could have sworn that, for a fleeting moment, he bit his lower lip. “I shall remain here, then, if that is consistent with your wishes.”

“I think so, Jeeves. After all, why muck about with a perfectly comfortable arrangement?”

“Very good, sir.” His hands, which had been resting serenely on his thighs, now crept forward to cover my own.

“I do worry about the state of our trousers, though,” I said. “They’re probably hopelessly wrinkled already.”

“Indeed, sir. It may be prudent to remove them.”

“A sterling idea, Jeeves. Your logic is unimpeachable.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, sliding a hand under my jacket and deftly unhooking one of my braces. “I endeavour to give satisfaction.”

The feast of logic and flow of soul reached a pretty low ebb at that point, for Jeeves leaned down and began applying his lips to my neck in a way that rendered me about as capable of intelligent conversation as a parsley root. 

Somewhere in the distance, a bear uttered a satisfied grunt.


	14. Chapter 14

What followed could only be described as slow and majestic and gasping. I couldn’t imagine why I’d given the tortoises of the steppe so much guff about it. Still, I drew the line at mewling lustily like an _Octolobulus manul_ in the throes of oestral fervor. One must consider the neighbors, after all.

Our amatory exertions complete, I lay nestled in Jeeves’s arms, the willowy frame feeling delightfully gelatinous. “Jeeves,” I sighed dreamily against my man’s neck, “may I ask you something?”

“Anything, sir.”

“What the dickens is an _Octolobulus manul_?”

He stroked my hair with a thoughtful hand. “A small, thickly furred wildcat endemic to the mountainous regions of Russia and Central Asia, sir.”

“Of course. How silly of me. I suppose the more pressing question is, what on Earth just happened?”

“I believe we united in venereal congress, sir.”

“Good lord. Do they make an ointment for that?”

“We made love, sir.”

“Ah! Right. Is that how it struck you, too? Good. I’m not dreaming, then.”

“If you are dreaming, sir, then so must I be.” 

“A dashed pleasant dream, isn’t it?”

“Most assuredly, sir.” 

“A far sight better than the one where I show up to the Drones darts sweep in my union suit and Freddie Widgeon chases me with a gigantic bread roll. But how did we get here, Jeeves? Less than an hour ago, I feel we were as near to mutual homicide as we have ever been. And now—well, I mean to say, what?”

“Indeed, sir,” said Jeeves, and if I could have seen his eyes from where I was lying, I’m sure they would have been gleaming with the keen light of intellect. “The vicissitudes of human nature are difficult to fathom. It is my belief, however, that my foray into piquant literature—as . . . unsatisfactory as the results may have been—roused certain latent potentialities within both of us. Our mutual antagonism over the past few days was undoubtedly the result of psychological tension resulting from the conflict between our burgeoning desires and our inclination to adhere to the codes of proprietous conduct.”

“Gosh!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jeeves,” I said, after briefly pressing my lips to his well-formed clavicle, “have I ever told you that you’re a marvel?”

“Frequently, sir, but one does not object to hearing it again.”

“Well, it bears repeating. You are a marvel, Jeeves.”

There was a brief and fruity silence. When Jeeves finally spoke again, the poor fellow sounded almost shy. “You still think so, sir?”

My heart gave an anguished little flutter.

“Oh, Jeeves,” I said warmly, turning to lay my hands on his magnificent shoulders and gaze directly into his smouldering glims, “more than ever!”

“I have proven myself fallible.”

“You have proven yourself human, Jeeves. What could be more marvelous than that?”

“Dear Mr. Wooster,” he whispered, and reeled me in for a kiss that curled my toes and caused smoke to rise from my ears.

“What a week, Jeeves!” I said breathlessly, once we finally emerged from our clinch. “This is one for the Club Book, eh?”

“Perish the thought, sir.”

A sudden thought struck me, and I gave his bosom an emotive slap. “By Jeeves, Jove! I mean, by Jove, Jeeves!”

“Ouch, sir.”

“Sorry, old egg. Something just occurred to me. You _are_ a writer, dash it!”

He eyeballed me dubiously. “Indeed, sir?”

“The Club Book, Jeeves! You’ve been holding the masses spellbound for years. We’ve simply had you writing in the wrong genre!”

“Really, sir, the entries are quite laconic. Little more than vignettes, or sketches. I would scarcely call them literary.”

“Ah, simply lending an air of verisimilitude. Don’t sell yourself short, Jeeves. I know full well how you while away the long winter evenings at the Junior Ganymede, sitting by the fire with a circle of starry-eyed footmen and underbutlers at your feet, all of them listening with bated breath while Uncle Reginald regales them with tales of his employers’ exploits.”

“My contributions to the book have proved particularly popular,” he said modestly. “This I attribute, however, to the subject of the tales, rather than to the style in which they are delivered.”

“Tosh, Jeeves. They’re just the sort of thing the _Boudoir_ ’s readership would shovel in with relish. These literary females love anything with a whiff of scandal about it. You could call it ‘The Observations of a Gentleman’s Gentleman’—a glimpse into the seamy private life of the noblesse, ripped from the pages of an anonymous manservant’s secret diary. Why, it would be an absolute scream from start to finish!”

“I was given to understand that the contents of the Club Book were a source of considerable embarrassment for you, sir.”

“Ah, but names would be changed to protect the guilty. Anyway, you needn’t stick to recounting my adventures. Who was that cove you worked for who was always running afoul of the constabulary and landing in chokey at the drop of a hat?”

“You, sir?”

“No, dash it. That Todd blighter.” 

Jeeves pondered for a moment, and then spoke. “I am willing to consider working these stories up for publication, sir,” he said, “under one condition.” 

“Anything,” I replied, with a fervent press of his hand.

He lowered the lashes bashfully. “You must help me write them.”

\---

It was a mild and balmy September evening. Jeeves had just floated in with two snifters of brandy on a tray. On the tray I also perceived a pair of small, yellow envelopes, tucked in between the glasses of the needful.

“Are those telegrams, Jeeves?” I asked. And I asked it with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart, for no telegram, however dire, was about to blot out the sunshine that prevailed in the Wooster bosom.

“Yes, sir,” replied Jeeves, sliding in beside me on the Chesterfield and adroitly bunging a snifter into my eager mitts. “One from Mrs. Travers, and the other from Mr. Biffen.”

"Old Biffy, eh? Well, well. He must have finally gotten the little squirt’s birthday present.” I nestled up against his shoulder and slid a generous dollop of brandy over the larynx. “Read them out, would you, Jeeves? Start with Aunt Dahlia’s. I anticipate ripe stuff.”

Jeeves opened the first communiqué and, having unshipped a gentle cough, read out:

“‘How are you, my little pie-eyed pipsqueak? Issue with Craye’s first contribution gone to press. Have received 7 separate irate letters in as many days from various members Women’s League of Moral Advancement and 2 from local vicarage. Agatha sharpening her halberd and polishing her best gauntlets. Readership up 20 per cent. Anticipate Jeeves’s new bit also roaring success next issue. Love. Travers.’”

I heaved a contented sigh. “Dashed gratifying, eh, Jeeves?”

“Indeed, sir,” he rejoindered, beaming benevolently back at me—or at least, coming as close to beaming as he ever does. “There is a postscript: ‘Don’t think I’ve forgiven you sneaking round paying off my debts; consider you slithering snake of first water. Come for dinner soon so can tick you off properly face-to-face. Bring Jeeves, would like to kiss him.’”

“Well, she’ll have to get in line,” I declared.

Proceedings ground to a halt for a few minutes, until Jeeves at last reluctantly detached himself from the lower portions of my face and flourished a second yellow envelope at me.

“Sir, the other telegram.”

“Oh! Yes, what does old Biffy have to say?”

“‘I say, old man, thanks awfully sending gift. Had forgot all about Geraldine’s birthday until parcel arrived day before. Present a great hit with Geraldine, but suggest you not show face around here at least few months as Mabel sworn to murder whomever responsible. Anyway pip pip old man, send Jeeves regards and thanks, he’s a lifesaver. Biffy.’”

I sat back, nonplussed. “What the devil is he blithering about? What did you send them, Jeeves?”

“From myself, sir? An attractive picture-book for little Geraldine, and a tin of _Quies_ earplugs for her parents.”

“Earplugs, Jeeves? Whatever for?”

“I thought they would nicely complement the gift I sent on your behalf, sir.”

“Oh, Jeeves!” I said, and there may have been a lump in my throat as I said it. “You didn’t!”

But Jeeves merely smiled and scooped me into his lap, and I shelved further discussion of all irate Biffens for some future date. For in that moment, all the trifling concerns of the world felt as remote and distant as the hoary, beet-studded leas of Kaluga Oblast. 

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, this wild ride is over! A million thanks to my awesome beta Wembley, who inspired this whole thing with a simple speculation about what would happen if Jeeves wrote a porno and was unaccountably terrible at it. 
> 
> Another million thanks to Cuddyclothes, who offered a ton of helpful suggestions and gleefully encouraged this debauchery, and also to Nonnel, who helped me sort out a couple of particularly tricky plotting details. You guys are awesome!


End file.
